Building a Robust Primary Care Workforce: Diffusing Lessons Across States

Blog post by Erin Fraher and Andreas Stomby 

Milbank Memorial Fund 

September 2026

In the absence of a national health workforce strategy in the United States, individual states, including Missouri, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, have developed and implemented state-level graduate medical education (GME) strategies to “grow their own” primary care workforce. The challenge will be diffusing the lessons learned from their efforts across states.