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Community Apgar Project

The Community Apgar Project (CAP) is a research-validated questionnaire used to assist rural hospitals in North Dakota identify strengths and challenges related to recruiting family medicine physicians. Most recently, the CAP process and methodology will be utilized to look at what makes a community healthcare facility a good educational campus for health professions education through a new tool called the Health Professions Education in Rural Communities (HPERC). HPERC is currently under development.

The Community Apgar Project:

  • Is a train-the-trainer program which uses a validated research tool to gather data
  • Allows critical access hospitals to identify and prioritize factors important to recruiting and retaining physicians, specific to their hospital, and more recently, factors that contribute to a successful training of health professions students
  • CAP provides data which can guide strategic planning and recruitment and retention efforts for critical access hospitals (2010-2016)
  • HPERC provides data which can determine readiness for becoming an educational campus for health professions students (2019)

The CAP was developed by the Family Medicine Residency of Idaho (now called Full Circle Health) and Boise State University. The Center for Rural Health partners with Boise State University to bring this project to North Dakota. The HPERC is being developed by the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences Department of Family and Community Medicine, the North Dakota Center for Rural Health, and the North Dakota Area Health Education Center.