A pair of bills that would add the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine to the Family Medicine Residency Network have advanced from policy committees in the opposite chamber and only one now needs a floor vote to be sent to the governor’s desk.
House Bill 2443 was voted out of the Senate Higher Education and Workforce Development Committee Tuesday and today Senate Bill 6093 was heard and voted out of the House Health Care Committee. Both now advance to await a floor vote. Both chambers already have voted out their own version without a single dissenting vote.
The bills recognize the college as an accredited medical school and adds it as a third co-chair of the Family Medical Education Advisory Board alongside the University of Washington and the Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences.
The network was established in 1975 to support family medicine residencies in the state and encourage the development of new ones. State law was updated in 2015 and funding provided to incentivize hospitals and clinics to expand such programs and develop new ones. The advisory board also was established to make recommendations on the selection of areas where affiliated residency programs will exist.