Programs

The Committed to the Heart Initiative, supported by funding from the Health Resources and Services Administration's Federal Office of Rural Health Policy, seeks to improve out-of-hospital sudden cardiac arrest survival rates among residents of rural counties served by Kentucky's 28 critical access hospitals.

The Elder Wellness Enrichment Initiative seeks to help promote and maintain healthy, active aging in rural Kentucky by identifying and increasing engagement with organizations currently serving rural Kentucky's aging populations and promoting opportunities for collaboration between those organizations and their regional rural safety-net health care providers.

The Kentucky EMS Leadership Academy, a six-month long training, mentoring and networking program, is designed to provide members of the emergency medical services (EMS) profession with the knowledge and skills necessary to take on significant roles and responsibilities in organizations and to succeed.

The Kentucky State Loan Repayment Program offers financial assistance (loan repayment awards) to health care professionals providing outpatient, primary care services in rural and underserved communities throughout the Commonwealth. 

The federally-funded National Health Service Corps and Nurse Corps offer scholarship support to students and loan repayment awards to clinicians who commit to practice in underserved communities. (The Kentucky Office of Rural Health serves as the state point of contact for these programs, providing outreach and offering technical assistance to program applicants and practice site participants.)

Kentucky’s Rural Hospital Flexibility Program endeavors to stabilize the smallest and most vulnerable rural hospitals, and to improve access to hospital-based care for rural populations. The grant program allows small hospitals the flexibility to reconfigure operations and be licensed as critical access hospitals in order to receive cost (+1%) based reimbursement.

The Rural Veterans Health Access Program, supported by funding from the Health Resources and Services Administration's Federal Office of Rural Health Policy, seeks to improve access to health care services for veterans living in rural Kentucky and to improve the coordination of care for veteran patients.

The Small Rural Hospital Improvement Grant Program (SHIP) provides funding to small rural hospitals to help them pay for costs related to the implementation of PPS, comply with provisions of HIPAA, reduce medical errors, and support quality improvement.