DPH working group to focus on residency pipeline, data and monthly meetings

The Connecticut Department of Public Health convened a physician workforce working group that opened its first meeting by reaffirming a legislative charge to study recruiting, retaining and compensating primary care and behavioral health providers and to recommend ways to increase primary care residency positions in the state.

Malia Allen, facilitator and Office of Policy and Strategic Initiatives staff, said the group’s work is intended to produce a report to the commissioner and the General Assembly by Jan. 1, 2026. “Your report will be going to our commissioner as well as to the general assembly. So this is your report. You own the report. It will not have DPH branding,” she said.

The meeting centered on an inventory-and-data approach. Tom St. Louis, workforce development director at the Connecticut Department of Public Health, and members agreed the working group should first compile numbers on existing residency programs, graduate destinations and regional workforce patterns before drafting policy proposals. Steven Angus, assistant dean for graduate medical education at the University of Connecticut, noted retention data already show a large effect from local training: “If you do med school here in Connecticut and you do a residency here in Connecticut, there’s a 67% chance that you’ll be practicing here in Connecticut,” he said.

Members representing medical schools, hospitals and health systems described existing and planned programs that the group will inventory, including a new Quinnipiac-sponsored family medicine residency established with a HRSA grant in February 2019 and a newly accredited Nuvance family medicine program in New Milford that will add four residents this year and four next year. Several members recommended also tracking behavioral health and psychiatry residency programs and distinguishing program mission and graduate outcomes by region.

Discussion emphasized the multifactorial nature of the recruitment and retention problem. Speakers cited factors outside the working group’s direct control — national medical school recruitment patterns, visa and J-1 placement systems for international graduates, and reimbursement levels for Medicaid and Medicare — while urging pragmatic, Connecticut-focused recommendations the legislature could implement. Participants proposed gathering comparative state examples to identify “high-yield” programs other states have used to support primary care.

On process and logistics the group agreed to a standing monthly meeting. Margaret Grady, lead planning analyst in the Office of Public Health Workforce Development, said DPH staff would support clerical work and circulation of materials. The group set a recurring second-Tuesday morning meeting cadence and scheduled the next meeting for May 13; members also discussed holding one or two in-person wrap-up sessions in late summer or early fall to finalize recommendations.

Action items assigned during the meeting included DPH circulating a proposed list of topics and requesting volunteers to lead data-gathering on specific areas (residency inventory, graduate tracking, regional workforce distribution, behavioral health programs). Members also volunteered to gather program-level graduate-tracking data from their institutions and to identify additional stakeholders for focused interviews. No formal votes or legislative actions were taken at the meeting.

The working group will use the next meetings to assemble baseline data, solicit targeted interviews from recent graduates and program directors, and prepare the outline for the Jan. 1, 2026 report to the commissioner and the General Assembly.