HHS https://www.hhs.gov released their Rural Action Plan produced by HHS’s Rural Task Force, to provide a roadmap for continuing existing but also upcoming efforts to improve rural healthcare. Eighteen HHS agencies and offices took part in developing the plan which includes 71 new or expanded activities.
New efforts that are underway include nine new rural focused administrative or regulatory actions, three new rural focused technical assistance efforts, 14 new rural research efforts, and five new rural program efforts.
The key challenges mentioned in the Rural Action Plan relate to issues such as emerging health disparities, chronic disease burden, high rates of maternal mortality, and limited access to mental health services.
The plan lays out a four point strategy to transform rural health and human services to:
- Build a sustainable health and human services model for rural communities
- Leverage technology and innovation
- Focus on preventing disease and mortality
- Increase rural access to care
HHS is very involved in rural health. For example, the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy (FORHP) created to advise the Secretary of HHS on healthcare crisis situations, is going to invest about $8.7 million over the next four years to support up to 29 new organizations under the new Telehealth Network Grant Program (TNGP).
TNGP aims to promote rural tele-emergency services by enhancing networks capacity to deliver 24/7 emergency department consultation services via telehealth by enhancing networks’ capacity. The focus on tele-emergency services for the TNGP supports the effectiveness of tele-stroke and tele-behavioral health in ERs, since evidence shows that there is a low volume of telehealth service utilization by emergency departments.
Also, FORHP awarded nearly $2 million to support the Telehealth Focused Rural Health Research Center Program. Awardees will do a comprehensive evaluation of nationwide telehealth investments in rural areas and populations and conduct research to expand the evidence base for rural telehealth services.
The Health Resources and Services Agency (HRSA) https://www.hrsa.gov within HHS, in FY 2020, provided about $30 million to support 62 awardees to expand the use of telehealth to meet the needs of rural and medically underserved areas focusing on tele-emergency and tele-behavioral health services.
At this time, HHS plans to elevate the role of the Office for the Advancement of Telehealth (OAT) located within HRSA, to create a focal point on telehealth that will serve as a resource across HHS and enhance coordination with other key federal and private sector partners. This effort builds on the key regulatory and program investments since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic that has expanded the use of telehealth nationally.
In addition, to the release of the HHS Rural Action Plan, on September 1, 2020, FCC, HHS and USDA signed a Memorandum of Understanding to work together on what is called the Rural Telehealth Initiative. The goal is to share information on health disparities, resolve service provider challenges, and promote broadband services and technology to rural areas.
Specifically, the Federal partners are going to:
- Establish an interagency Rural Telehealth Initiative (RTI) Task Force
- Appoint agency representatives to participate in the RTI Task Force
- Convene meetings of the RTI Task Force
- Consider future recommendations and/or guidelines
- Exchange agency expertise, scientific and technical information, data, and publications as needed
Go to https://hhs.gov/sites/default/files/hhs-rural-action-plan.pdf for more information on the HHS Rural Action Plan.