Saturday, May 10, 2025
5/10/2025
Community Project Funding/Congressionally Directed Spending - Construction - This federal grant proposal seeks to address the challenges faced by rural hospitals in Cochise County, Arizona, in accessing timely, accessible, and affordable imaging services. Critical access hospitals in these areas lack the necessary volume to invest in a permanent MRI and must resort to renting a mobile MRI from a vendor. However, this arrangement requires individual hospitals to pay a daily rental to a third-party vendor and limits the days the mobile MRI is available, reducing access to patients who need the service. Additionally, the rental equipment is often outdated, leading to significant downtime and reduced quality of MRI scans. To provide a sustainable and cost-effective solution to this problem, the project proposes the partnership between Copper Queen Community Hospital, Benson Hospital, and Northern Cochise Community Hospital to acquire and operate a shared mobile MRI unit, providing better accessibility and cost-effectiveness in providing healthcare services to patients in remote areas or smaller towns. The program is designed to provide each facility with new equipment, additional days of providing MRI services, better image quality, and a pathway to continue the service beyond the life of the grant. Critical access hospitals can obtain cost savings and offer increased imaging access to patients in need by sharing operational expenses. Each facility contributes what they normally would have paid to an outside vendor for a daily MRI rental to a common fund that can then be used to cover shared operational expenses, maintenance, and provide the ability to upgrade the equipment as needed. The project has seven main goals and objectives: 1. To purchase and equip a mobile MRI unit with advanced technology that can be shared among the four critical access hospitals. 2. To provide training and education to hospital staff and community partners on the use of the mobile MRI unit services. 3. To develop a scheduling system to ensure timely and efficient use of the mobile MRI unit. 4. To provide diagnostic imaging services to individuals living in rural communities, particularly those with chronic diseases or occupational injuries and accidents. 5. To improve health outcomes and quality of life for individuals living in rural communities by providing timely and accurate diagnostic imaging services. 6. To provide a sustainable model that supports continuation of the project beyond the three-year grant period. 7. To ensure that each critical access has ongoing access to reliable and updated imaging equipment. The mobile MRI unit proposed for this project is a state-of-the-art diagnostic imaging system that is designed to be flexible and adaptable for use in a variety of settings. The unit will be equipped with advanced technologies to provide high-quality diagnostic imaging services to individuals living in rural communities. The evaluation plan for the mobile MRI service is an integral component of the project. The project team will conduct ongoing evaluations to assess the effectiveness of the service and ensure that it is meeting the needs of the target population. The evaluation plan will include both quantitative and qualitative measures to assess the impact of the mobile MRI service, as well as the cost-effectiveness of the service. In conclusion, the mobile MRI service project represents an innovative and critically important effort to improve access to high-quality diagnostic imaging services for rural communities while also providing a significant financial benefit. Through a reinvestment strategy, the shared MRI service can be continued well into the future, including upgrade pathways to keep equipment updated. This not only improves patient outcomes but also helps to reduce overall healthcare costs, making it a financially sound investment for hospitals and healthcare providers.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).