About Minnesota AHEC

Minnesota AHEC, established in 2002, works in partnership with communities to address their unique health professional workforce needs. A collaboration with the University of Minnesota Academic Health Center's six health professions schools, Minnesota AHEC includes the statewide Program Office plus regional AHECs in the Northeast, Southern, Central, and Northwest regions.

Minnesota AHEC Program Office

The Minnesota AHEC Program Office serves as a bridge between the Minnesota AHEC Regions and the University of Minnesota.  Located on the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities campus, the Program Office works to connect faculty, students, and programs to rural Minnesota communities. 

The Minnesota AHEC Program Office creates and coordinates programs that broadly support the goals of the regional AHECs.  These include:

• preceptor resources that assist community health professionals in accessing up-to-date research;
• stipends and housing identification to support health professions students in completing experiential education rotations in rural Minnesota; and
• development of statewide interprofessional education sites supporting community-based providers and health professions students.

National History

The Area Health Education Center (AHEC) program is a national program, begun in 1970, to improve the accessibility and quality of primary health care. With a leading objective of eliminating Health Professional Shortage Areas, the program was designed to encourage universities and educators to look beyond their institutions to partnerships that meet community health needs, working toward the goal of decentralizing health professions training and linking communities with academic health centers in partnerships that promote cooperative solutions to local health concerns.

In a typical year, AHECs across the country:

• Train 32,000 health professions students (17,000 medical students and 15,000 other health professions students) in community-based sites
• Work with approximately 600 federally-funded community and migrant health centers, 600 health departments and 200 National Health Service Corps sites
• Provide health career enhancement and recruitment activities of 20 hours or more to 25,000 students grades 9-12
• Train 6,000 teachers and counselors in health careers
• Provide continuing education to 330,000 local health care providers

For more information on the federal AHEC program, visit the U.S. Department of Health's Health Resources and Services Administration Web site.

For more information on the National AHEC Organization (NAO) and links to programs in other states, visit the NAO web site.