Northwestern McGaw Family Medicine Residency Program, McGaw Medical Center of Northwestern University, on Behalf of Northwestern McGaw Family Medicine Residency Program at Erie Family Health Center and FQHC

This program was created to address the changing needs of health care in this nation as exemplified by the current national attention to the shortage of primary care physicians and implications with regard to access to health care. It is clear that as a consequence of the Affordable Care Act, as many as 32 million more Americans will be eligible for health care insurance. Estimates are that at least 15 million will be receiving care in community health centers making it essential that these sites have the ability to train the primary care physicians and provide the services needed to meet the health care needs of these newly insured. Access to primary care and health care through community health centers has been shown to improve health outcomes at less cost for the majority of underserved patients.[1] According to the draft twentieth report of the Council on Graduate Medical Education (COGME), ―the shortage in primary care providers, particularly those capable of caring for adults with chronic disease (Family Medicine and General Internal Medicine), overshadows the deficits in all other specialties. This shortage is especially critical in the context of health care reform objectives that have the potential of adding 32 million newly insured individuals that will only further increase the need for primary care physicians.‖ COGME estimates that ―in a scenario where 35 percent of those currently not covered gained insurance coverage, 84,000 primary care physicians would be required.‖ One of the recommendations of the COGME report is to increase residency training in ―ambulatory, community and medically underserved sites.