MercyOne Central Iowa announced that it has received a $1.9 million federal grant that it will use to develop a rural residency program for family medicine physicians. The grant from the Health Resources & Services Administration’s Residency Training in Primary Care Program will be used to increase accredited family medicine residency training in rural areas throughout Iowa to address the state’s shortage of such providers. The MercyOne Family Medicine Rural Residency Program will be the first family medicine residency rural track in the state of Iowa, the health system said in a press release. “The project will succeed thanks to the strong strategies we will implement,” said Dr. Hijinio Carreon, chief medical officer at MercyOne Des Moines Medical Center. Among those strategies will be recruiting residents (physicians who have recently graduated from medical school) with ties to rural Iowa, and collaborating with community partners in 10 rural communities. The HRSA grant was awarded to the Iowa Medicine Education Collaborative, a partnership of MercyOne Des Moines Medical Center and Primary Health Care Inc. The new program represents an expansion of MercyOne’s existing family medicine residency program, which has been training residents since 1997.