Rural Hospital Provider Assistance Program - Saint Thomas DeKalb Hospital, located in Smithville, Tennessee (CCN: 440148), is an eligible rural hospital under the Rural Hospital Provider Assistance Program. The hospital provides 24/7 emergency care, specialty care, surgical services, imaging, laboratory, rehabilitation, heart care, and women's health services for residents of DeKalb County and surrounding rural communities. The hospital serves as a critical access point for essential healthcare services in a region where patients often face transportation barriers, workforce shortages, and limited local access to specialty providers. Saint Thomas DeKalb Hospital will use Rural Hospital Provider Assistance Program funding to maintain anesthesia provider capacity and ensure continued access to essential surgical and procedural services. The project directly supports the program goal of maintaining healthcare providers and sustaining essential healthcare services in a small rural hospital facing workforce and reimbursement challenges. Maintaining local anesthesia coverage is essential to preserving access to inpatient and outpatient surgical services, emergency procedures, and other interventions that require timely anesthesia support. Grant funding will be used to offset personnel costs associated with maintaining anesthesia services, including salary support, contracted anesthesia coverage, recruitment expenses, retention incentives, continuing education, credentialing, and other allowable provider-support activities. These investments will strengthen workforce stability and help ensure the hospital can continue providing surgical services locally. The project will support the ongoing availability of anesthesia coverage needed for scheduled surgical procedures, urgent and emergent interventions, endoscopy and procedural services. By maintaining anesthesia staffing, the hospital will preserve access to services that are vital to patient health, safety, and quality of life. Continued local availability of these services helps reduce delays in care, improves care coordination, and minimizes the financial and transportation burdens experienced by rural patients and families. The proposed project aligns with HRSA's objective of strengthening rural healthcare workforces and maintaining essential health services. Funding will help address a workforce vulnerability that could otherwise threaten service availability in the community. Stable anesthesia coverage supports the hospital's mission of delivering comprehensive, high-quality healthcare close to home and contributes to long-term sustainability of rural healthcare infrastructure. Expected outcomes include retention of anesthesia providers, preservation of local surgical and procedural capacity, sustained access to emergency and specialty services requiring anesthesia support, and continued availability of healthcare services for residents of DeKalb County and the surrounding rural region. Funding will be managed in accordance with HRSA requirements and used exclusively to support the maintenance of healthcare providers and essential services at the hospital level. The hospital attests that project activities will directly support provider retention and service continuity and will contribute to the prevention of avoidable disruptions in healthcare access for rural populations.
