Florida Hospital Earns Statutory Teaching Hospital Designation

Florida Hospital Earns Statutory Teaching Hospital Designation

ORLANDO, Fla., - June 28, 2010 - Florida Hospital has earned designation as a Statutory Teaching Hospital by the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA). This designation is part of the hospital's commitment to the University of Central Florida Medical School to expand graduate medical education programs that support the new medical school and help meet the growing need for physicians in our community.

The Statutory Teaching Hospital designation is granted to hospitals with at least 100 or more full-time equivalent resident physicians in seven (or more) different graduate medical education (GME) programs. The programs must be accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, or by the Council on Postdoctoral Training of the American Osteopathic Association.

Florida Hospital has long been recognized for its training of both Doctorate of Medicine (MD) and Doctorate of Osteopathy (DO) family practice physicians, and for its long-standing podiatry training program. Over the last several years, Florida Hospital has added programs in emergency medicine, general surgery, internal medicine, gynecologic oncology, neuromusculoskeletal medicine (DO), and colon and rectal surgery.  In addition, Florida Hospital has fellowship programs in geriatrics, gynecologic minimally invasive surgery, and women's health.

The hospital is now working with federal and state governments to add additional residency programs that will support the new University of Central Florida (UCF) Medical School.

"The challenge is finding funding sources for these new programs," said Dr. Joseph Portoghese, chief academic officer for Florida Hospital. "The state approved the new medical schools at UCF and Florida International University, but did not fund any residency slots - each of which costs about $180,000 per year."

Residency slots are mainly funded by a combination of federal Medicare and state-federal Medicaid funds. But, because Florida ranks in the lower quartile for the number of per capita GME slots, most teaching hospitals in Florida supplement GME funding.

"As we grow our GME programs, Florida Hospital remains committed to primary care physician training," said Dr. Portoghese. "This is important both locally and nationally. We will continue to balance that training with new specialty training." 

Florida Hospital received formal notice of its Statutory Teaching Hospital designation in March of this year. The seven other teaching hospitals in Florida include Jackson Health System in Miami, Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach, Shands Healthcare at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Shands Jacksonville Medical Center, Orlando Health in Orlando, Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville and Tampa General Hospital.

For more information, please contact Florida Hospital Media Relations 407-303-8217

www.floridahospitalnews.com

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