Insights
GME Industry Trends
Germane Solutions' CEO, Susan Hearn-Stiffler, is laser-focused on the evolving trends and shifting priorities of the greater GME ecosystem and brings valuable insights that directly address the most prevalent challenges within the industry. With over 35 years of experience, Susan strives to create a higher-functioning environment for all Academic Medicine stakeholders, and each quarter, Susan will highlight emerging strategies and provide you with insights to excel in the ever-evolving GME climate.
Rural Health Transformation (RHT) Program
With persistent physician shortages disproportionately impacting rural communities, healthcare leaders are increasingly challenged to develop sustainable strategies that expand access to care while strengthening the workforce pipeline. In response, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) launched the Rural Health Transformation (RHT) Program, a $50 billion investment aimed at improving rural healthcare delivery, infrastructure, and long-term workforce capacity across all 50 states.
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When leveraged effectively, RHT funding can support the expansion of rural training sites, strengthen teaching infrastructure, and enhance recruitment strategies that connect physicians to the communities that need them most. As states operationalize their plans and begin deploying funds, institutions that proactively align their GME strategy with state priorities will be best positioned to maximize both funding opportunities and workforce impact.​
GME Marketing & Programmatic Branding
With a projected physician shortage ranging from 54,000 to 139,000 by 2033, healthcare administrators must prioritize the effective recruitment of medical residents to address gaps in their medical staffing strategies. These gaps arise from normal physician turnover, anticipated retirements, and the growing population's demands.
However, competition for top-tier medical residents is more intense than ever. To attract and retain this new generation of talent, administrators must adapt their approaches, recognizing that today’s residents possess distinct perspectives and expectations compared to their predecessors. Although the passion for medicine and patient care remains steadfast, outdated recruitment methods can hinder meaningful connections with potential candidates. It’s crucial to evolve and engage residents on both personal and professional levels to build a robust medical workforce for the future.
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Residency recruitment strategies play a pivotal role in attracting top-tier learners. As hospitals strive to build strong residency and fellowship programs, the importance of programmatic branding and leveraging social media cannot be overstated. When strategically employed, an effective branding and social media strategy not only enhances visibility but also positions the program as a desirable learning environment for prospective applicants.​
Medicare GME Affiliation Agreements (MGMEAA)
MGMEAAs provide flexibility within hospital partnerships for Medicare reimbursement and cap sharing. They are leveraged between two or more teaching hospitals to optimize Medicare reimbursement from GME activity and provide additional experiences to residents/fellows through a variety of clinical learning environments. These affiliations give hospitals the ability to temporarily transfer cap from one hospital to another, thus optimizing learner education, and maximizing Medicare reimbursement.
If you have shared rotational agreements, multiple hospital sites, non-hospital rotations, or unused cap, you should consider if a MGMEAA would help you optimize funding.
GME Marketing & Recruitment
Gen Z’s media habits and usage of digital technology are forcing businesses to interact with them differently than previous generations. Gen Z has never known a world without social media, and it is paramount to how they communicate and make decisions. Authenticity of brand and personal connection to services and products is very important in this generation’s decision to purchase or align themselves with a service or program.
While residency programs are not selling a product (at least in the traditional sense), they are selling a brand of training, an experience, and an identity for their residents. Learning how to effectively communicate with them is imperative for your program’s longevity.
GME's Impact on a Hospital's Strategy
Coming out of the pandemic, many U.S. health systems are shifting their priorities away from short-term tactical strategies that were critical to maintaining operations, as well as from external M&A activities. Instead, organizations are focusing on strategic growth initiatives with clear rationales. Today’s priorities center on extending market reach, improving quality and access to care, and creating a sustainable workforce.
Graduate Medical Education (GME) plays a critical role in advancing organizational strategy by fostering a culture of clinical and educational inquiry, prioritizing quality across operations, and strengthening the physician workforce pipeline.
EPAs
Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) are utilized in the educational process of nursing, allied health, and medical students and residents. EPAs are defined as units of professional practice that can be fully entrusted to a trainee as soon as they demonstrated the necessary competence to execute the activity unsupervised.
The American Board of Surgery (ABS) is taking a step forward in modernizing how surgical training is assessed and evaluated, recently announcing its Entrustable Professional Activities (EPA) Project. This project aims to develop a competency-based assessment for general surgery trainees and represents a significant change from traditional time-based residency training models. This new assessment paradigm has the potential to create a habit of workplace-based micro-assessment and improvement-oriented performance feedback linked to core competencies and milestones, ultimately improving the quality of clinical training experiences for general surgery trainees.
Rural Designation
If your hospital is designated as urban and hasn’t considered electing rural you may be missing out on several benefits, including additional GME reimbursement, the ability to develop new funded GME programs, and 340B funding. This designation does not mean that you need to be located in a rural area. In fact, many hospitals across the country in areas such as New York City, Miami, and Los Angeles have made this election.
Historically, hospitals that chose to elect rural designation experienced losses in the first few years due to the requirement to be paid at rural rates for the first year. However, recently, CMS published the final FY 2024 IPPS rulings that can reduce the initial loss and make the strategy more valuable to hospitals.
Germane Solutions has helped many hospitals reclassify as rural under § 412.103 and through wage index reclassifications with the MGCRB. To find out if your hospital would financially benefit from the implementation of these strategies, please reach out to us for assistance in that evaluation.
Interprofessional Learning & Learner Integration
According to the World Health Organization, interprofessional collaboration encourages learners to work together and respect diverse perspectives, enabling healthcare teams to deliver more effective, patient- and population-centered care. Research shows that this approach enhances quality and safety outcomes while also improving satisfaction among patients, learners, and caregivers.
There is increasing interest across the industry in structuring learners within interprofessional models, as this approach not only improves outcomes but also supports retention after graduation. Training and retention are becoming strategic imperatives to ensure hospitals and health systems have the workforce needed to effectively serve their patient populations.
Germane Solutions works closely with organizations to develop effective learner strategies, integrate interprofessional education into an organization's strategic vision, and develop comprehensive learner strategies that meet cultural, quality, and workforce needs.
Your GME Partner
Susan Hearn-Stiffler, RN, BSN, MBA
Ms. Hearn brings over 35 years of experience in clinical and administrative healthcare. Her substantial experience as a registered nurse and healthcare consultant brings to bear all the knowledge and experience of a clinician along with a broad-based understanding of the healthcare industry. Prior to assuming the CEO role, Ms. Hearn oversaw all operations for Germane’s National Academic Medicine Consulting Group. Ms. Hearn also served as a Senior Manager and leader in the healthcare practice at Deloitte Consulting. Ms. Hearn holds a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the College of Mt. Saint Joseph and an MBA from the University of Cincinnati.
