Over the next few years, Idaho healthcare providers, emergency services and even religious institutions will have the chance to apply for just under $1 billion dollars — or about $186 million annually — in rural healthcare grants.
Those subgrants, which will be reposted on a rolling basis, are funded by the Rural Health Transformation grants that Congress passed last year.
That funding is intended to drive “transformational change” in how states think about and access care in rural communities, said Juliet Charron, the director of the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare.
“It's not about filling the gaps on Medicaid reimbursement rates,” she said. “It's not about supplanting existing funding sources that may exist within states or localities.”
What the grants target
Last year, Idaho’s Department of Health and Welfare put out a survey for healthcare groups and members of the public to shape the priorities for those rural health subgrants.
In that survey, Idahoans said some of their biggest problems included limited access to existing healthcare, a limited healthcare workforce and a need to invest in infrastructure.
Some of the ways the state is looking to tackle those challenges include technological advancements, improvements to rural health centers and targeted programs for issues like chronic disease management.
Part of the emphasis on rural healthcare is focused on reducing the need for patients to travel for care, Charron said.
“How do we bring care to them,” she said, “or prevent them from needing to go to the emergency room in the first place?”
In some cases, funding could potentially go toward things as simple as bringing a health facility’s building up to code, purchasing MRI machines or patching emergency service gaps for first responders.
“(Things like) beefing up our actual infrastructure around EMS,” Charron said. “Helping our county partners and local government figure out how to sustain their EMS staffing, wherein many of them are relying on volunteers.”
Subgrants include funding for behavioral health programs, substance use disorder prevention and crisis intervention training.
One “Healthcare Infrastructure Support” subgrant allocates around $97 million to increase capacity in rural Idaho communities. Those improvements could include anything from HVAC updates to updating electronic medical record systems.
“It's a pretty broad net,” Charron said. “The goal is really to support those one-time but significant purchases that may otherwise be difficult for a smaller rural clinic, hospital (or) independent provider to afford on their own.”
Who can apply
While many of the grants are aimed at healthcare providers, applications aren’t limited to just them. Other entities that might be eligible for grants include emergency services and disability and long-term care providers.
For more traditional healthcare entities, Charron said investing in improvements that help build revenue streams is an important part of the process.
“I think one of our main goals there is to help them with revenue generation,” she said. “Which, in turn, is what we need to do for long-term sustainability.”
Charron also noted that Health and Welfare is seeking to engage non-traditional partners including schools, libraries, community centers and maybe even faith-based groups.
“We know we have faith-based charity organizations that do a lot of good work, and we already partner with many of those entities for other areas of work across the Department of Health and Welfare, particularly in the child welfare space,” Charron said. “So, we also want them to see, ‘Hey, here's an opportunity for you to get even more involved in expanding the good work that you're already doing with us.’”
While collaboration with community partners — including faith-based organizations — is a goal, Charron said the department has yet to reach its goals in doing so.
“We've been moving so fast in the last several months,” she said. “There is some targeted outreach that we need to do going into year two. And better engaging with our faith-based partners is at the top of that list.”
Read the audio transcript here.
