Eastern Washington University has taken over management of the Area Health Education Center programs on its Spokane campus this fall as part of an effort to promote exposure and exploration of health professions for students in rural areas.  

AHEC is a national program that was first developed by Congress in 1971 to recruit, train, and retain a health- professions workforce committed to underserved populations. Krista Loney, who serves as program operations manager for EWU’s AHEC program says, “There are three AHEC organizations in the Pacific Northwest, one in Western Washington, one which works in the western states of Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho (WWAMI), and then ours.”

The program is now based at EWU Spokane’s College of Health Science and Public Health, with an office in the Phase I Classroom Building. The Spokane campus’ AHEC previously was managed by Washington State University.

EWU took over management of the center Sept. 1st and has begun working to tie in current courses under its Health Services offerings. Funded by grants from the Washington State Department of Health and University of Washington School of Medicine’s WWAMI program, AHEC program also works in conjunction with the other two universities to provide education and interaction for students.

Loney says the program has three main goals for this year. “First, we want to build a kind of pipeline for youth who are interested in health careers. Second, we’d like to complete an assessment for continuing education of health care providers in rural areas, and lastly, we’d like to continue working on providing current medical students with externships to rural communities.” 

According to Loney, the program’s first goal of developing a youth pipeline is probably its most involved.

“It’s difficult to get health professionals interested in working out in these rural areas,” she says. “When we’re able to get students who are from these small towns interested in health care, they’re more likely to return to the area when it’s time to start their career, thus filling that need.” 

Loney says AHEC offers two different programs as part of this initiative, Sleepover for Science and Project Health Occupations Preparatory Experience.

Sleepover for Science enables kids in fourth through sixth grades to stay over in the health sciences building and participate in simulations with programs like dental and nursing schools to see what it’s like to be a student. 

Project HOPE is an internship program geared more toward high school juniors and seniors. AHEC sets out to recruit different health care providers to offer these paid internships to students in their communities. 

“It’s an exciting program. Last year we had over 400 applicants for 14 placements,” says Loney. Because of the high interest, she says this year the program hopes to double the amount of placements available.

AHEC’s second goal of helping rural health care providers with continuing education is a project that Loney and one of EWU’s grad students already are working on.

“A lot of these professions involve staying up to date on the latest procedures and continuing education for renewing licensures,” says Loney. “Some of these rural communities lack the time or resources to get that training. We’re reaching out to them, finding out what training they need and how we can most easily provide them with it.” 

As part of its third goal, Loney says AHEC also plans to continue working with the Rural Underserved Opportunities Program. That program works with first-year and second-year medical students who are interested in externships in rural communities under a preceptor. “These placements expose them to rural areas,” says Loney. “Our idea is that once they’ve experienced working in a small town and see the difference they can make, they may decide they’d like to stay there.”