Dive Brief:
- After announcing it would close its family medicine center at the Herman "Denny" Farrell Jr. Community Health Center in June 2016, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital reversed its decision Tuesday after strong staff opposition and said the program will stay open, faculty will remain and it will accept another class of residents.
- Closing the center would have cut vital services for patients in the Washington Heights community and abruptly force residents to reapply for new residency programs and faculty to find new jobs elsewhere, according to the International Business Times.
- However, Karen Sodomick, a vice president of public affairs at the hospital, said in a statement emailed to IBT, "We will be accepting an additional class of residents in its current form as we explore the development - in close collaboration with faculty, residents, and medical students - of other potential models of primary care training and delivery in the future."
Dive Insight:
The Center for Family and Community Medicine includes four community health centers, of which the Farrell Center is one. The Washington Heights community it serves reflects an impoverished area- 27.6% of the population lived below the federal poverty level in 2013 compared to 2.9% citywide.
It's unclear what prompted the hospital's initial decision to close the program when there has been a national push, backed by ACA funding, to expand primary care. The legislation provided $230 million to training 1,700 new doctors, nurses and physician assistants in primary care and set aside $5.4 billion in Medicaid reimbursements for primary care, as reported by International Business Times.