HB 25-1263

House Bill 25-1263, also known as the Graduate Medical Education Grant Program, aims to create a new grant program within Colorado’s Department of Public Health and Environment. This program will provide funding to health-care facilities in the state that have never had residency programs for training doctors, helping to increase the number of trained physicians and address the shortage of medical professionals. The bill involves engaging various stakeholders to determine how these grants should be awarded and managed. Since it has been signed into law, this means that Colorado will now offer grants to help establish new residency programs at eligible health-care facilities.

Official Summary

The bill creates the graduate medical education grant program (grant program) in the health facilities and emergency medical services division (division) within the department of public health and environment (department). The purpose of the grant program is to support the establishment of accredited residency programs at health-care facilities in Colorado that have never had a physician resident training program in order to expand physician training capacity and address the state's physician workforce shortage. The division shall engage stakeholders, including representatives from for-profit and not-for-profit medical schools, to recommend criteria for grant eligibility and other aspects of the grant award and reporting process. The department may seek, accept, and expend gifts, grants, or donations from private or public sources for purposes related to the grant program. The bill requires the department to include information about the grant program's role in creating new medical residency programs in the department's "SMART Act" hearings. (Note: This summary applies to this bill as introduced.)