Gov. Kay Ivey announced Aug. 24 the awarding of 138 grants totaling more than $144 million to healthcare providers and institutions across the state in the first round of the Alabama Rural Health Transformation Program. The funds will support projects covering rural areas in every Alabama county aimed at improving healthcare access, quality and outcomes.
Ivey said the program is “enabling institutions covering every part of the state” to improve care through projects she described as innovative and sustainable.
The program is administered by the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs and includes 11 initiatives. This first round funds five of them, covering rural health, rural workforce, mental health, rural health practice, and electronic health records, information technology and cybersecurity. The projects are supported by a federal award from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services totaling more than $203.4 million, and additional grant rounds will be announced later.
The University of Alabama at Birmingham received $7 million to expand its pipeline for recruiting, training and retaining physicians for rural practice across 35 counties, along with $887,616 to establish a youth workforce program introducing high school students to careers in emergency medical services, emergency preparedness and public health response in five counties including Jefferson. The Jefferson-Blount-St. Clair Mental Health Authority also received $542,965 to develop the infrastructure needed to transition to the certified community behavioral health clinic model.