Rural Health Care Services Outreach Grant Program - The Rural Oregon Mobile Integrated Health Program (ROMIHP) falls under the Regular Track for the HRSA Rural Health Care Services Outreach Program. The program will primarily serve Wheeler County, Oregon and will secondarily serve other rural communities statewide. ROMIHP qualifies for funding preference as all of Wheeler County is considered frontier (i.e., remote), medically underserved, and located within a HPSA. ROMIHP represents a consortium of eight organizations that will employ the evidence-based model of mobile integrated health (MIH) to address the identified needs of Wheeler County residents and to build the capacity for other rural Oregon areas to implement MIH programs in their communities. Recognizing MIH as an evidence-based and critical part of rural residents' access to health care services and that Oregon's rural EMS agencies and health care facilities face resource, financial and population health challenges, the Oregon Office of Rural Health (ORH), housed at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), will work with its identified partners (and increase partnerships) to achieve the following goals during this grant's four year performance period: 1) establish and support the ROMIHP consortium to launch rural Oregon MIH initiatives, coordinate operations and evaluate project activities' programmatic and community-level impacts; 2) create a repository of standardized MIH resources (an "MIH toolkit") and capacity for expert technical assistance (TA) and pilot these new resources with Wheeler County partners (and future additional rural Oregon counties) to stand up a local MIH program; and 3) facilitate the dissemination of MIH programs to improve underserved patients' health outcomes and health status, both in Wheeler County and throughout rural Oregon. Outcomes for the overall project include publishing an MIH toolkit and establishing technical assistance for MIH in rural Oregon, establishing an MIH program in Wheeler County and three other rural communities statewide, training and employing six individuals as MIH providers in Wheeler County, and improving the capacity of Wheeler County's strained health care organizations and workforce. The patient population in Wheeler County that will be served includes individuals with low incomes, older adults, individuals with mobility disabilities, high utilizers of the EMS system, and patients who have been lost to follow-up at Wheeler County's only health care facility, Asher Community Health Center (a federally qualified health center). Outcomes among this patient group include clinic-verified improvement in health outcomes for a variety of chronic health conditions (i.e., diabetes, cardiovascular disease, COPD, etc.) and self-reported improved health status. ORH and its partners are well-poised to conduct this work. ORH has 40 years of experience serving as the coordinating body for rural health in Oregon, as well as successfully operating programs that support increasing Oregon's rural health care workforce and provide education and technical assistance to Critical Access Hospitals, Rural Health Clinics and rural EMS and public health agencies, focused on quality improvement, finances, operations and population health. ORH most recently led a consortium of 100 network partners to build rural Oregon's community health worker and community paramedic workforces through the HRSA Rural Public Health Network Training Program. It will employ the successes of this program, and its 40 years of experience building partnerships and supporting rural communities in improving the availability of and access to quality health care in rural Oregon, to managing the ROMIHP and successfully achieve program outcomes.
