(a)  The Legislature finds and declares that evidence exists to support the development of health promotion and health-risk reduction programs as an effective method of constraining the annual inflation rate for expenditures in the health industry. It is, therefore, the intent of the Legislature that a health manpower education program be developed to demonstrate the health promotion and health-risk reduction concept at educational institutions, with special emphasis on health manpower development in urban areas having a disproportionate share of disadvantaged and indigent persons.

(b)  The office shall establish a contract program for funding allied health manpower training projects related to health promotion and health-risk reduction. The contract program shall provide funds to eligible institutions, as determined by the office, for all of the following purposes:

(1)  Teaching existing and future primary care providers about health-risk reduction through the institutions’ basic curricula.

(2)  Recruiting, remediating, and retaining minority allied health professionals, including, but not limited to, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, nurse-midwives, public health nurses, health educators, dieticians, and nutritionists, especially those who provide in-home patient care.

(3)  Increasing the supply of medical care in underserved urban areas and demonstrating methods which reduce cost through the use of allied health personnel.

(c)  (1) These funds shall be available to institutions which currently operate programs for training family physicians, other primary care physicians, and those health professionals identified in paragraph (2) of subdivision (b).

(2) For purposes of this subdivision, “family physician” means a primary care physician and surgeon who renders continued comprehensive and preventative health care services to individuals and families, and who has received specialized training in an approved family medicine residency for three years after graduation from an accredited medical school.

(d)  The recipients of the funds shall provide, but shall not be limited to providing, orientation and training of primary care providers in teaching methods related to patient health education and health promotion, such as educating allied health professionals in the principles of self-care management as it relates to specific health problems in medically underserved communities.

(e)  The office shall consult with organizations and experts in the field regarding the establishment of this program, and beginning with the 1986–87 fiscal year, this program shall be implemented to the extent funds are provided in the Budget Act. This program shall be designed to accommodate an appropriation request in the range of forty thousand dollars ($40,000) to eighty thousand dollars ($80,000) per year.

(f)  The director of the office may waive any of the requirements of subdivisions (b) and (c) if a potential contractor demonstrates an ability to meet the goals and objectives of the program.

(Amended by Stats. 2019, Ch. 632, Sec. 10. (AB 1622) Effective January 1, 2020.)