The Appalachian Region Healthcare Support Program provides technical assistance (TA) to help rural healthcare organizations, including critical access hospitals (CAHs), small rural hospitals, rural health clinics, tribal healthcare facilities, and other healthcare organizations located in the rural counties

credit: Flickr/Don McCullough

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served by the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) with planning and implementing health care service improvements.

The goal of this program is to strengthen healthcare delivery in rural areas of the Appalachian Region by improving financial and operational performance as well as the quality of care in rural healthcare organizations.

The TA provider funded under this cooperative agreement will work with individual healthcare organizations to meet the following program objectives:
• Provide objective analysis and assessment of healthcare organizations’ financial status, market share, quality indicators, locally available human services, and gaps in services so that organizations can make actionable change; • Identify clinical areas where expansion of services within a rural healthcare organization would meet local need, keep health care services available locally, and build capacity to improve financial and operational performance as well as quality of care.

• Support healthcare organizations in implementing best practice recommendations prioritized in TA action plans.

For purposes of this notice of funding opportunity, “rural healthcare organization” is a health care organization located in a rural area in the Appalachian Region.

A “healthcare organization” includes critical access hospitals, small rural hospitals, rural health clinics, tribal healthcare facilities, and other healthcare organizations.

To determine if a health care organization is located in a rural area, visit https://data.hrsa.gov/tools/rural-health.

To determine if a county is in the Appalachian Region, visit https://www.arc.gov/appalachian-counties-served-by-arc.For more details, see Program Requirements and Expectations.