CENTER FOR RURAL HEALTH STRATEGIC PLAN

2012

The plan was developed based on the mission of the Center for Rural Health, goals of the Center and the SWOT analysis.

Vision:

The Center for Rural Health will provide rural health leadership to the state, region, and nation.

Mission Statement:

The mission of the Center for Rural Health is to improve the health of Arkansas’ rural communities and their residents by encouraging partnerships, identifying collaborative opportunities, leveraging available resources, and addressing key rural health needs in the following areas:

Rural Health Workforce Core Division

Pre-health professions recruitment

Goals:

  • Provide data to address the chronic shortages of healthcare providers in rural communities.
  • Maximize the number of students in primary grades through college that are informed about, choose to prepare for, and successfully enter healthy professions training programs.
  • Measure impact of pre-health professions recruitment programs

Actions taken:

• Developed a web site for students to access information re: health careers

• Survey 4,212 health facilities to assess the demand for health providers in Arkansas.

and publish a workforce vacancy study to provide data for educators and policy makers.

• Innovative pipeline programs for 6th – college students resulted in 636 recruiting programs in

137 towns. These programs were led by pre-health professions recruiters with 40% student

minority participation and 46% from rural areas and a total of 59,108 participants during the

last year.

  • Increased the number of students in the MASH/CHAMPS programs – from 377 students to 483 students
  • Pre- health recruiters in each AHEC

Further actions necessary:

  • The CRH will utilize pipeline programs that will result in more students from rural areas being trained in a health profession.
  • The CRH will develop innovative and effective programs led by pre-health professions recruiters to recruit young people to the health careers pipeline while encouraging them to receive their training at UAMS or at an AHEC if the training program is available.
  • The CRH will expand the summer programs of MASH and CHAMPS with additional funding. Students showing an interest in a health career will be tracked and supported throughout their training until they enter practice.
  • The CRH will keep the health careers web site innovative and updated

Physician and other health professional recruitment

Goals:

  • Place physicians, physician assistants, advanced practice nurses, and allied health professionals in health facilities in rural Arkansas.
  • Select and recruit appropriate providers with the desire to serve rural Arkansas.
  • Encourage collaboration among urban and rural providers through technology

Actions taken:

• A new web based recruitment model is being implemented

• 24 signed contracts have been collected from hospitals

• $70,500 revenue has been collected for the new web-based recruiting model

• Tim Hill, director of the Rural Hospital Program is supervising the program

• Hired 2 physician recruiter

Further action necessary:

• Redesign the Web site

• Hire another physician recruiter

• Populate the Web site with providers that want to practice in Arkansas

• Sell $50,000 of contracts each quarter for the next two quarters

• Collect CVs of resident physicians on campus and resident physicians in the AHECs

Education and Training Core Division

Goals:

  • Mentor students interested in practicing in rural areas
  • Teach health professional students at UAMS about rural health issues
  • Encourage practice in rural areas

Actions taken to date:

  • The CRH utilized the University’s academic resources to provide training experiences and rural rotations for medical students, a program that is presently providing sponsored training in at least 48 counties and 63 different communities.
  • The CRH encouraged medical students in the Rural Loan Scholarship Program and other students interested in rural practice to perform an extended 8 week Family Medicine preceptorships between the 1st and 2nd year through the AHEC Program, including a service learning
  • Establish a community practice learning community for health professions students interested in rural health, including monthly educational meetings on important rural health topics and discipline specific mentors.
  • Improved clerkship and rotations in rural areas for all health professions students at each AHEC by revising curriculum and strengthen.

Future actions necessary

• Work more closely with UAMS Communications and Marketing to utilize different strategies to educate and to increase interest among medical students in family medicine.

Research and Practice Improvement Core Division

Goals:

  • Study and improve the delivery of primary care and community outreach programs in rural settings.

Actions taken to date:

• Obtained 2.6 million dollar grant to support PCMH

• Eleven pilot research projects funded

  • Promotional and marketing material for APBRN developed and mailed
  • Assisted all AHECs in the process of establishing the patient centered medical home
  • Established and maintain the infrastructure to conduct practice- and community-based research in the AHECs.
  • Worked with a Central Committee to establish guidelines and target dates for reaching first stages of MU
  • Implemented HRSA Residency Training Grant to develop a PCMH on-line training curriculum and care manager
  • Developed the academic fellowship program
  • Refinement of the AHEC information system

Future actions necessary:

• Complete level one of PCMH by 12/11 and level two by 6/12.

• Complete timeline for meeting MU

• Implement MU in all AHECs

• Membership drive for the APBRN network

• Develop additional research projects

• Expand the Academic Fellowship Program from 2 to 6

• Reorganize the division for maximum efficiency and effectiveness

• Increase Grant funding

• Develop QI process for all AHECs

Continuing Medical Education Core Division

Goals:

  • Assist Arkansas’ medical community, especially rural providers, maintain a base of knowledge appropriate to their professional activities.
  • Deliver continuing education programming that increases the quality of clinician performance, improves patient safety and health, target gaps in knowledge, and help providers maintain certification.
  • Utilize a variety of methods to deliver continuing education to rural locations, largely eliminating the need for travel.

Actions taken to date:

  • Delivered 528 separate CE courses to 6,200 providers from July 1, 2011 to July 1, 2012. This includes physicians, pharmacists, nurses, and allied health professionals contains 58,000 records
  • CE evaluation records in the database number 67,000.
  • The CRH utilizes face-to-face, interactive video, computer-base, asynchronous video, and print delivery methods to rural students.
  • $33,000 revenue generated by the CE program in the last year.
  • Over 200 programs online
  • Web site developed to attract a national audience
  • Ability to print CE certificates online

Future Actions necessary:

• Increase number of participants

• Merge CE program with Center for Distance Health

• Develop applications for phone and I Pad using new CE City Programming

• Obtain new CE provider through Center for Distance Health

• Market programs to a wider audience

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Rural Hospital Core Division

Goals:

  • Strengthen rural hospitals by sharing resources from UAMS and University Hospital with community hospitals throughout the state

Actions to date:

  • Contracted with the Greater Delta Alliance for Health with a CRH staff person for cost plus 5%
  • Regional Network Development needs assessment – facilitated site visit by Rich Bias (9/30) and ongoing evaluation of the opportunity that might be available to UAMS, if supported by the Campus and the COM
  • Site visits made to 18 different hospitals/communities to determine needs, identify opportunities and develop the relationship with UAMS. More than 75% of the hospitals have had at least one visit or contact at various events such as the AHA annual meeting & trade show, Mid-South CAH meeting and ADH CAH & rural hospital quarterly meetings
  • Continued efforts to restructure the Physician/Provider Placement Services, build and market the Rural Hospital Program products to Physicians, client hospitals and clinics.

Future Actions necessary:

  • Offer mini fellowships for nurses and clinical staff in rural hospitals
  • Establish networks in rural Arkansas and strengthen relationships with UAMS and University Hospital.
  • Create a consulting division within the RHP to offer C-suite (CEO, CFO and CNO) interim staffing in hospitals that have displaced executives and need assistance during the transition
  • Develop rural health/hospital network to push out clinical services to rural hospitals in Arkansas

Telehealth and Research Core Division

Goals:

• Provide advocacy and research for rural health issues

  • Encourage collaboration and intercommunication among hospitals throughout Arkansas to deliver mutual learning and clinical consultations.
  • Assist rural hospitals to join UAMS in addressing federal telehealth initiatives
  • Foster research relationships between UAMS and rural healthcare facilities.

Actions to date:

  • Surveyed rural health facilities in Arkansas to determine workforce vacancies
  • Published the Health workforce vacancy report
  • Published the Center for Rural Health Annual Report
  • Published the AHEC Annual Report
  • Sponsored a Rural Health Retreat
  • In collaboration with IT developed and updated 6 databases
  • Collaborated with the CDH to utilize the UAMS Telehealth Network, to reach every rural hospital in the state, to deliver education and consultations to rural hospitals.
  • Prepared numerous reports
  • Wrote 3 Grants
  • Published Book Chapter on Telemedicine

Health Literacy Division

Goals:

●Improve health literacy in Arkansas through research and education

Actions to date:

  • Founding member of the Health Literacy Partnership
  • Leader of the Professional Education workgroup
  • Presentations at Public Health conference Health Literacy division
  • Staff trained in teaching the Health Literacy Tool Kit
  • Member of the Health Literacy Research think tank
  • Delivered numerous HL provider programs over IV and in person
  • Trained all AHECs in the HL tool kit
  • Health Literacy Research Conference

Future actions necessary:

  • Become a self-sustaining program
  • Establish programs to increase individual HL in prevention behaviors improve health status, decrease hospital readmissions and decrease acute care episodes.
  • Establish HL programs for provider HL to increase quality of care, increase safety, decrease health care costs and decrease health care complexity.
  • Establish programs for community health literacy and policy by increasing population and community capacity.
  • Secure HL grants

Health Policy and Advocacy

Goals:

  • The Center for Rural Health’s goal is to work with diverse stakeholders to help integrate and improve the health of rural Arkansans.

Actions to date:

  • Established a 45 member rural partnership organization to assess the status of rural health in Arkansas, assess rural issues, conduct studies for updating rural health status and disseminating results to policy makers
  • Compiled primary and secondary data related to health disparities and limitations of the health care system
  • Work with Clinton School students to conduct focus groups in rural Arkansas to assess status of rural health.
  • Conduct monthly meetings of the partnership to receive input on rural health
  • Hired a senior policy analyst
  • Conducted Summit to present community conversation findings

Future actions necessary:

  • Publish a minimum of 4 policy papers per year
  • Focus on policy analysis and rural health research to become a leader in rural communities, the state, region and nation in addressing rural health issues.
  • Work directly with partner rural organizations to address the call to action suggestions in the “status of rural health in Arkansas” report.
  • Use a variety of methodologies to identify promising public policy solutions that promote access and mitigate barriers that exist in health care in rural Arkansas.