Enhancing Alabama Healthcare One Patient, Professional, & Student at a Time
At AHEC, our mission is clear: recruit, train, and retain the Alabama healthcare workforce while increasing diversity among health professionals, broadening the distribution of the health workforce, enhancing the quality of care, and improving health care delivery to rural and underserved populations in Alabama.
Who We Are
Founded in 2012, Alabama Statewide Area Health Education Centers (AHEC) is comprised of five AHEC Centers serving all 67 counties of the state. The Alabama Statewide AHEC Program Office is guided by the Statewide AHEC Advisory Council and housed within the University of Alabama at Birmingham Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine and Department of Family and Community Medicine.
What We Do
The purpose of the Alabama Statewide AHEC program is to meet the needs of the communities we serve through robust partnerships with a focus on exposure, education, and training of the current and future healthcare workforce. Our programs are dedicated to future career development, quality healthcare treatment, and enhanced healthcare access throughout the state.
Diversifying the Workforce
We diversify the workforce by ethnicity and socioeconomic status through the recruitment of individuals in rural communities, encouraging various professions across the healthcare industry.
Bridging Educational Gaps
Supplementing healthcare specific educational resources attempts to reduce the statewide academic achievement gaps.
Economic Development
As was one of the largest employers in a given community, each family medicine physician placed in a rural community creates 24 new jobs.
Workforce Development
Recruits students through our secondary education Scholars Program. Partnering and collaborating with high schools and community colleges, AHEC provides opportunities to students in order to develop a trained healthcare workforce for Alabama.
Continuing Education
We provide a connection between two and four-year education institutions that promote climbable career ladders for healthcare professionals. With these connections, we hope to increase the retention rate for healthcare professionals and aid underserved Alabamians.
Programs
Health Career Program
Specific to each center the AHEC Pathway Programs aim to establish a resource funnel for marginalized students through strategic partnerships with four-year institutions, community colleges, and non-profit organizations. We are firm believers in encouraging rural students to see the health care career opportunities in their own community.
Our Pathway Programs offer high school students in grades 9-12 the opportunity to learn and discover their passions for health careers through classroom presentations, free ACT prep classes, campus tours, career counseling, mock interviews, and so much more. These programs bring awareness to the vast field of healthcare and work to inspire future health care leaders.
Health Professions Student Program
As an AHEC scholar, you’ll learn together as an inter-professional team, completing both didactic and clinical training in addition to your regular curricula, with a focus on preparing you to work with Alabama’s medically disadvantaged populations. With this two-year commitment, you’ll participate in 40 hours of online training as well as 40 hours of team-based service learning per year.
AHEC scholars will engage in team-based clinical experiences, providing care to vulnerable and underserved patients in settings such as homeless shelters, free clinics, community health centers, health fairs, and more. From dental and nursing programs to speech therapy and public health professions, our Health Professions Student Programs aim to enhance your knowledge and competence in all areas of public health.
Practicing Professionals
Specific to each center the AHEC Pathway Programs aim to establish a resource funnel for marginalized students through strategic partnerships with four-year institutions, community colleges, and non-profit organizations. We are firm believers in encouraging rural students to see the health care career opportunities in their own community.
Our Pathway Programs offer high school students in grades 9-12 the opportunity to learn and discover their passions for health careers through classroom presentations, free ACT prep classes, campus tours, career counseling, mock interviews, and so much more. These programs bring awareness to the vast field of healthcare and work to inspire future health care leaders.
Alabama Office of Healthcare Workforce
Driven to discover, the Alabama Office of Healthcare Workforce (AOHW) strives to empower the healthcare workforce and policy-makers through effective healthcare data research.
Why it Matters
Alabama AHEC supports all points along the health professions pipeline to increase the diversity and broaden the distribution of the healthcare workforce, improve healthcare quality, and enhance delivery of healthcare to rural and underserved areas.
Our programs:
- Connect students to health careers
- Connect healthcare professionals to the communities that need them
- Connect communities to better health through access to healthcare
- Connect Alabama to better health overall
Our Regional Centers
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The Alabama Statewide Area Health Education Center is funded in part by the Health Resources and Services Administration, the federal agency charged with training health professionals and improving health care for people who are geographically isolated, economically disadvantaged or medically vulnerable. The contents of this website are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by HRSA, HHS or the U.S. Government.
