National AHEC Organization


​Our Mission
The National AHEC Organization represents a network of more than 300 AHEC program offices and centers that serve over 85% of United States counties. The NAO mission is to help its members achieve the AHEC mission through advocacy, education, and national partnerships.

The AHEC mission is to enhance access to quality health care, particularly primary and preventive care, by improving the supply and distribution of healthcare professionals via strategic partnerships with academic programs, communities and professional organizations
 
What AHECs do:

Health Careers
  • AHECs are committed to expanding of the health care workforce, while maximizing diversity and facilitating distribution, especially in rural and underserved communities.
  • AHECS offer creative, hands-on and innovative health career curriculums for pre-college level students.

Health Profession Students
  • AHEC clinical training placements put health professions students in a variety of real-world settings, such as migrant, urban, and rural community health clinics and health departments that provide healthcare to rural and underserved populations.
  • Connecting students to community populations helps facilitate future engagement and network alliance building for health career students to remain in their clinical practice regions and continue providing more sustainable healthcare in rural and underserved areas following their training.
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Health Professionals
  • AHECs provide accredited continued education programs and professional support to meet the needs of healthcare professionals, especially those practicing in rural and underserved areas.
  • Development of programs designed to enhance clinical skills and evidence-based practices, while helping support academic progression and development of high-quality certification levels that allow professional development to expand to the full scope of practice.

Communities
  • AHECs are designed to be responsive to local health needs and serve as an important link between academic training programs and community-based outreach programs.
  • AHECs provide innovative, collaborative and interprofessional responses to current and emerging health issues.
 
AHEC Scholars
AHEC Scholars is a program for health professions students interested in supplementing their education by gaining additional knowledge and experience in rural and/or underserved urban settings. This is a longitudinal program with interdisciplinary curricula to implement a defined set of clinical, didactic, and community-based activities.

By the numbers
AHEC training programs reached 627,223 participants in the 2020-21 academic year. The numbers in our latest data report tell the story.