After a successful inaugural year, California Correctional Health Care Services (CCHCS) is excited to continue our NP and PA residency training program. This innovative training program is the only NP and PA Residency Program in the nation within a correctional setting. CCHCS offers new graduates the opportunity to strengthen clinical and scholarly skills as a primary care provider, caring for patients with complex medical conditions, in a supportive environment as part of a longitudinal team-based practice.

Our program is hosting two residents in the 2022-2023 academic year. Residents will be based at our Northern California location, California Medical Facility (CMF), a men’s facility in Vacaville.

The 2022-2023 CCHCS NP and PA Residency class will run from September 1, 2022-August 31, 2023

Residents will embark on a 12-month post-graduate learning experience including:

• 2000+ hours of mentored Primary Care experience in an outpatient setting.
• Rotations through many collaborative, interprofessional specialty areas of focus such as Hepatitis and HIV care, procedure clinics, palliative care clinics, behavioral health, transgender patient care, and substance abuse/medication assisted treatment (to name a few).
• Weekly didactic training focusing on important aspects of primary care including a focus on pain management.
• Quality Improvement training and support to complete a QI project during the year.

• Precepted “Continuity Clinics”: 16 hrs/week
  These are the cornerstone of the residency. In precepted clinics, the residents develop their own patient panel while having an expert CCHCS primary care provider exclusively assigned to them.
• Specialty Rotations: 8 hrs/week (rotating monthly)
  Planned specialty rotations include: HIV/HCV Care, Behavioral Health, Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) for substance use disorder, Diabetes Care, Transgender Care, Palliative and Hospice Care, Urgent Care, and Wound Care.
• Mentored Clinics: 8 hrs/week
  During mentored clinics, residents work as a member of an established team and see patients at the delegation of the experienced primary care providers, who remain available for consultations. The focus is on the practice of episodic and acute care visits and learning practice management skills.
• Didactic Education Sessions: 4 hrs/week
  Formal learning sessions on a variety of conditions and complex clinical challenges most commonly encountered in primary care. The content of the presentations is planned to correspond to the resident’s clinical experiences.
• Quality Improvement Training: 4 hrs/week
  Training on CCHCS’ quality improvement model, including population health management and clinical microsystems, as well as professional and leadership development.

Evaluations The CCHCS NP and PA Residency Program provides an ongoing multi-input evaluation component using qualitative and quantitative measures.
Please click here for the recorded program presentation webinar

The NP and PA Residency Program has the following goals:

• Prepare NPs and PAs to become confident Primary Care providers while utilizing the most up to date evidence-based practices
• Deliver a robust curriculum that integrates critical thinking and independent decision making and expands the body of knowledge of advanced practice providers
• Increase new advanced practice provider satisfaction with their transition from entry-level to competent primary care provider
• Increase access to quality primary care for underserved and special populations

The prison population is a historically underserved and high medical risk population, which in California consists of about 100,000 adults and 34 facilities across the state. Compared to the general population, the prison population has a significantly increased burden of chronic medical conditions, infectious diseases, trauma, mental illness, and substance use. There are also well-recognized socioeconomic, educational, and racial disparities in the correctional population. Moreover, the prison population is still part of the larger community, requiring coordination of care throughout incarceration and upon parole/release. All health care providers must have an understanding of incarcerated patient populations and work together to fill in gaps in health care.

“This has been a great learning opportunity and an excellent model of interdisciplinary care.”

“I am learning a great deal and I am starting to become more confident.”

“I got to practice joint exams which is something we learned in didactics last week. The new skill helped immensely when caring for a recent patient.”

“Overall I’m having a wide variety of experiences full of exposure to many providers and practices. I’m thankful I can see this specific healthcare from so many different lenses.”

“A patient stopped me in the hall yesterday and with his large ear-to-ear grin wanted to tell me he really appreciated all I did for him. That made me feel like I’m really making a difference. I can’t wait to make more patients smile.”

• Recent graduate (within 24 months) from an accredited Nurse Practitioner or Physician Assistant Program
• MUST be able to complete 12 consecutive months of training starting September 2022
• Nurse Practitioners must be board certified in Family or Adult-Gerontology Nurse Practitioner (board certified by ANCC or AANP)
• Current active and unrestricted license as an RN and APRN in California (NP applicants)
• Physician Assistants must be board-certified by the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants (NCCPA)
• Be proficient in spoken and written English

*Applicants must be board eligible if graduating winter or spring of 2022 and, if selected, must obtain boards and required licensures before program begins.