The Institute for Family Health Receives HRSA Funding to Launch Family Nurse Practitioner Residency Program in the Bronx
Bronx, NY (June 27, 2019) – The Institute for Family Health was awarded four-year, $2,400,000 grant from the federal Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to launch a comprehensive family nurse practitioner residency program in the Bronx. Funds will enable the Institute and its academic partner, the City University of New York – Lehman College, to provide post-graduate training to family nurse practitioners at the Institute’s federally qualified health centers in the Bronx. The program will prepare new FNP graduates to provide outstanding primary health care to medically underserved communities.
Dr. Neil Calman, the co-founder, president, and CEO of the Institute for Family Health, said, “We are absolutely thrilled to have this opportunity to expand our existing training programs to include a residency for family nurse practitioners. FNPs are a critical part of the Institute’s primary care workforce. An additional year of hands-on training will better equip newly graduated FNPs to work more effectively with the patients we care for, and enhance our overall capacity to meet the needs of the communities we serve.”
The Institute’s family nurse practitioner residency program will provide residents with a structured, supervised year of clinical practice and continuing education, with a specific focus on serving high-need communities in the Bronx, where the Institute operates six community health centers. Beginning in 2020, the program will train four residents, and will expand to train up to nine by 2022. The program builds on the Institute’s long history of innovative health workforce development programs, notably its family physician residency programs in Manhattan, the Bronx and Kingston, NY.
Margaret Walsh, FNP-BC, an experienced family nurse practitioner who will direct the residency, said, “We are proud and delighted to be able to offer this training in the Bronx. This program will prepare nurse practitioners for professional practice in high-need communities, while also providing access to care in neighborhoods with a shortage of health professionals.”
Family nurse practitioners are independently-licensed advanced practice nurses, whose scope of clinical services includes primary care for adults and children of all ages. The Institute has a long history of cultivating nurse practitioner leadership. The organization’s co-founder and Bronx clinical director, Yvonne Eisner, FNP-BC, is a family nurse practitioner who will serve as a faculty adviser to the new program. Since the Institute’s inception, Institute health centers have been staffed by primary care teams that frequently include family nurse practitioners and family physicians working side-by-side to deliver outstanding care to people of all ages.
Family nurse practitioner degree candidates are invited to visit www.institute.org in late 2019 for information on how to apply for a residency position for the 2020-2021 academic year.
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The Institute for Family Health (www.institute.org) is a federally qualified health center network that operates 30 practices in New York State serving more than 115,000 patients annually. Services are available to people of all ages, regardless of ability to pay.
