San Antonio residency program receives
federal grant to improve chronic care

The Christus Santa Rosa Family Medicine Residency Program in San Antonio has been awarded a five-year, million-dollar grant by the Health Resources and Services Administration to implement and refine an integrated chronic care clinical model and develop residency curriculum within the context of the primary care medical home.

The funding comes through HRSA’s Training Programs in Primary Care initiative, put in place to support and enhance family medicine, general internal medicine, and general pediatric programs to develop curriculum, train faculty, provide didactic and community-based education, and train residents in underserved areas. Within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, HRSA is the primary federal agency responsible for improving access to health care for the uninsured, isolated, or medically vulnerable, according to an article published in the Christus Santa Rosa newsletter.

“This is tremendous news for our team and provides validation that we are moving in the right direction as we strive to promote and teach the tenets of the primary care medical home,” residency program director Todd Thames, M.D., M.H.A., said in the article.

The Christus residency program was one of only 23 programs nationwide to receive funding through the TPPC initiative. They are one of an even smaller number of community-based programs without the grant-writing resources of a large academic health center, Thames noted in an e-mail to TAFP. He said, “We are proud of this award and excited about the possibilities as we implement the program.”