What is a Teaching Health Center?
Administered by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), the Teaching Health Center Graduate Medical Education Payment Program, created by the Affordable Care Act, expands residency training in community-based settings. Residents are trained in family and internal medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, psychiatry, and general and pediatric dentistry.
Program Overview
CIFC/GDCHC's Primary Care Residency Program is a three-year program, which provides comprehensive preparation for the practice of General Internal Medicine. The program fulfills all of the requirements of the American Board of Internal Medicine. CIFC/GDCHC is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME); is recognized as a Level 3 Patient Center Medical Home (the highest rating) by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA); and is the first and only Teaching Health Center in the State of Connecticut.
CIFC/GDCHC provides a distinctively unique learning environment for Resident training. As Connecticut's first and only Teaching Health Center, CIFC/GDCHC ensures each of our residents experience the full extent of community medicine with an in-hospital and outpatient centered medical home model.
CIFC/GDCHC offers two parallel components for the Residency Training Program. In-patient hospital rotations and subspecialty rotations are completed at either Nuvance Health's Danbury Hospital (Danbury Site) or Griffin Hospital in Derby, CT (Griffin Site). Continuity Clinic and Medical Home rotations take place at the Greater Danbury Community Health Center (GDCHC) in downtown Danbury.
Danbury Hospital is a vibrant learning environment for Residents to train. Founded in 1885, the Hospital is located in Danbury CT, minutes away from GDCHC, and provides care for approximately 350,000 people from the 12 towns of Western Connecticut, covering an area of over 400 square miles. Danbury Hospital has received numerous recognitions of excellence in tertiary care services. The hospital is a designated Level 2 Trauma Center serving western Connecticut and the lower New York State region. Healthgrades® ranked Danbury Hospital in the top 5% in the nation for overall clinical excellence. Internal Medicine trainees care for patients with a wide variety of problems commonly encountered in a general medicine setting.
Griffin Hospital serves as the flagship hospital for Planetree, an international leader in patient-centered care and has received national recognition for creating a facility and approach to patient care that is responsive to the needs of patients. At Griffin Hospital, residents become familiar with the unique Planetree philosophy, and learn the basic tenets of patient focused care. Residents are provided with an intense teaching program in a personalized, friendly and stimulating atmosphere. Various clinical departments are closely integrated and readily accessible, allowing for excellent resident-attending communication. The affiliation with Yale University provides the residents the added advantages of completing their sub-specialty elective rotations at a tertiary care university hospital setting and exposes them to lectures, conferences and rounds with Yale based faculty. Griffin Hospital serves the Lower Naugatuck Valley region.
Each of these opportunities, balanced with a strong evidenced-based curriculum, provides residents a lively medical education opportunity. Working in a community based health center has diverse, unique, and unparalleled community programs in place, with faculty who put education first. The Teaching Health Center Graduate Education Primary Care Residency Program model at GDCHC not only provides medical education in an efficient manner, but also gives residents a gateway to serving the community and advancing the field of primary care.
If you are a medical resident interested in pursuing this opportunity, please contact us.