Project Grant P1355803

The Health Resources and Services Administration Bureau of Health Professionals awarded Oroville Hospital $729,537 on August 1, 2026, to establish a new, fully ACGME-accredited internal medicine residency program serving rural Butte County, California.

Oroville Hospital will train 18 residents at steady state (6 per postgraduate year) principally at the hospital campus, addressing a documented physician shortage in this federally designated health professional shortage area. The county bears a heavy safety-net burden with approximately 40.5 percent of residents enrolled in Medi-Cal, an aging population, and lingering effects from the 2018 Camp Fire. No internal medicine residency currently operates in the rural target area. Oroville Hospital, a private nonprofit acute-care facility, already sponsors an ACGME-accredited neuropsychiatry residency established in July 2025 and holds CCN 050030.

An ACGME accreditation site visit occurred on July 23, 2026, with an accreditation decision anticipated in fall 2026. First resident matriculation is expected July 2027. The award covers the period August 1, 2026, through July 31, 2029. Program sustainability combines a Medicare FTE resident cap under 42 CFR 413.79(e) as a new teaching hospital with layered public funding through California SONG-Brown, CalMedForce, and California Medicaid GME.

The award falls under the Rural Health Research Centers program (CFDA 93.155), although the source material describes this as a residency planning and development effort rather than research per se.