West Virginia Rural Health Education Partnerships

Serving rural West Virginia through health professions education and community outreach

Date: September 8^th, 2004

To: WVRHEP Advisory Panel

Attn: Dennis Mc Cutcheon, Chair

From: Winding Roads Health Consortium

Kanawha Valley Health Consortium

Re: Recommendations on Mergers and Consolidations

The following charge was given to Winding Roads Health Consortium and the Kanawha Valley Health Consortiums on May 17^th, 2004.

Merge Kanawha Valley Health Consortium and Winding Roads Consortium.

Maintain both current office locations and lead agency affiliation agreements, however, share one secretarial position and one community service coordinator. Consider restructuring the RHEP site coordinator positions to meet local needs. Seek other ways to restructure or job share existing positions where feasible and practical.

WRHC and KVHC Report on Progress and Plan

As of this date, both consortia have held several meetings to begin the discussion of what can best serve the two areas. Our boards felt that a simple merger of our two consortia would not ultimately show cost savings or any overall improvement in the program. Instead of a mere merger, our two boards have decided to explore a larger and more worthwhile proposal: creating the 5^th Area Health Education Center, covering those six counties exempted from the original AHEC grant (plus Jackson County because of its ties to Winding Roads). We held a meeting to which we invited all of the key stakeholders from these exempted counties on August 30^th. While we did not make any decisions at that meeting about what form the AHEC would take (whether it would be an “RHEC” – combined RHEP and AHEC consortium – or an independent AHEC with independent RHEP consortia) because we did not feel that we had enough representation from those counties involved, we have decided to continue the conversation through future meetings. In addition, three agencies within Kanawha Valley Health Consortium and Winding Roads Health Consortium have applied for a federal planning grant in the amount of $64,000 to fund the planning of the 5^th AHEC network, in whatever form that takes.

Our timeline as of right now is as follows:

• August 30^th – Initial RHEP/AHEC discussion meeting
• September 20^th – Jacquelynn Coopenhaver (who facilitated the Aug. 30^th meeting) will have notes and next steps written to send to participants
• October 1^st – Kanawha Valley and Winding Roads to write a formal proposal to Western Counties, Cabwaylingo, Southern Counties, and Mountain Health Consortia to determine their willingness to participate in

1. The planning of a 5^th AHEC

2. The planning of a RHEC, made up of the counties of Kanawha, Roane, Jackson, Boone, Putnam, Lincoln, and Clay. This new organization would be a combined RHEP/AHEC Consortium and would require those consortia involved to allow these counties to leave their current RHEP consortia to join this new RHEC.

• November 1^st – Deadline for Western Counties, Cabwaylingo, Southern Counties, and Mountain Health Consortia to respond to proposal
• December15th – Appointment of an Advisory Group, made up of representatives from the involved counties, to begin work on the creation of the 5^th AHEC and/or RHEC, based on the responses from the above consortia.

Throughout this process, we will be seeking funds, both from federal and foundation sources, to fund the 5^th AHEC and/or RHEC.

While this letter cannot provide solid cost-savings projections at this point because we do not know what the outcome of our potential collaboration with other consortia on this project will be, we can say that, whether or not a separate RHEC is formed from the six exempted counties plus Jackson County, we will not ask for any additional funds from any of the RHEP consortia we are inviting to participate (Western Counties, Cabwaylingo, Southern Counties or Mountain Health). We are asking, however, that the “Fund Balance” currently held by the Winding Roads Health Consortium be allowed to remain at the disposal of WRHC and KVHC as they move forward in the planning and exploration stages. This is a one-time request to assist with the start-up of this new program. We are not asking to be exempted from any future budget reductions. Overall, we will be showing cost-savings to the program because we will be diversifying the funding base of Kanawha Valley and Winding Roads through additional grant dollars with the start of this new project.

Both consortia are excited about the new challenges that we face. We believe that through furthering the development of the WVRHEP and WVAHEC programs, West Virginia will once again position itself to be the model for change within the nation in regards to health professions education and the recruitment and retention of those undergraduate students and medical residents that we educate.

Sincerely,

Mark Caldon Elizabeth Bolyard, Mark Newbrough, MD

WRHC Board Chair KVHC Board Co-Chair KVHC Board Co-Chair