• WVRHEP/AHEC
  History
  Updated January 2009

  West Virginia is fortunate to have a robust partnership for educating health professionals in rural and underserved areas to meet the unique needs of the state.  The foundation for this partnership can be traced back to roughly 30 years of development and advances in medical and health professions education in the state.  In 1972, West Virginia received its first AHEC grant and the Charleston (WV) Division of the West Virginia University (WVU) School of Medicine was established.  In the same year, the West Virginia School for Osteopathic Medicine (WVSOM) opened in Lewisburg, WV, and in 1973 the Marshall University School of Medicine opened in Huntington, WV.  In 1991, the West Virginia legislature took bold action to address rural health disparities by redirecting the education of health professions students by building a community based rural health training partnership with rural communities in the state. 
  In 1991, the WV legislature created the Rural Health Initiative (RHI) Act under the guidance and administration of Governor Gaston Caperton with the clear intention of engaging communities and higher education resources to improve the recruitment and retention of WV trained health professionals.  The RHI Act appropriated $6 million in state funding per year to develop the statewide rural health community based training infrastructure. The state received one of the seven national Community Partnership Initiative grants of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation also in 1991 at $6 million over five years.  This state funded program integrated with the Kellogg Community Partnerships Initiative in 1995 to form the West Virginia Rural Health Education Partnerships (WVRHEP).  Financial support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the state legislature was used to build a state infrastructure of community-based training sites in rural communities and to make changes within the academic institutions to emphasize rural primary care and interdisciplinary clinical training at the community level.  West Virginia’s publicly funded higher education system is a pioneer in degree required, community-based rural health rotations in the nation. 
  By 1992, four primary care training centers and eight regional training networks had been established.  WVRHEP has expanded exponentially during the last sixteen years and pursued its objectives, including the development of rural rotations for medical residents.
              In 2001, when WV AHEC received its Basic/Core Grant, it immediately entered into a partnership with the state-funded WVRHEP Program.  WVRHEP/AHEC’s commitment to serve the health care needs of underserved populations is characterized by its efforts to improve the distribution of primary care physicians in rural communities, and link health professions education to dynamic community-based recruitment and retention activities.  The WVRHEP/AHEC program also represents a state and federal partnership that supports each mission synergistically, collaborating closely, sharing responsibilities and resources.  Since 2001, five AHEC Centers have been established in regional areas of the state.  Each Center provides community based interdisciplinary education experiences for health professional students and medical residents, continuing education, and K-12 health careers programs and activities. In 2009, the WV AHEC program transitioned from Basic/Core grant support to Model State Support Funding.

If we can help you with more information, please contact us. Thank you for your interest in rural health education in West Virginia.

Hilda R. Heady, Associate Vice President for Rural Health
Office of Rural Health
Robert C. Byrd Health Sciences Center at West Virginia University
P.0. Box 9003
Morgantown, WV 26506-9003
(304) 293-6753
hheady@hsc.wvu.edu