Rural Maternity and Obstetrics Management Strategies Program (RMOMS)

For programmatic or technical questions:
Victoria (Vicky) Tsai , MPH
RMOMS@hrsa.gov

For grants management or budget questions:
Bria Haley
301.443.3778
Bhaley@hrsa.gov

Grants.gov contact center:
800.518.4726
support@grants.gov
Self-service knowledge base

HRSA contact center:
877.464.4772
TTY: 877.897.9910
HRSA contact page

The Rural Maternity and Obstetrics Management Strategies Program (Short Title: RMOMS) is designed to demonstrate improved access to, and continuity of, maternal and obstetrics care in rural communities.

Program goals:

• Identify and implement evidence-based and sustainable delivery models for the provision of maternal and obstetrics care in rural hospitals and communities
• Enhance and preserve access to maternal and obstetric services in rural hospitals that includes developing an approach to aggregate, coordinate, and sustain the delivery and access of preconception, prenatal, pregnancy, labor and delivery, and postpartum services
• Provide training for professionals in healthcare settings that do not have specialty maternity care
• Collaborate with academic institutions that can provide regional clinical expertise (such as specialty expertise and provider support using a variety of modalities including telehealth services) and help identify barriers to providing maternal healthcare, including strategies for addressing such barriers
• Assess and address disparities in infant and maternal health outcomes, including among rural racial and ethnic minority populations and underserved populations

RMOMS focus areas:

1. Rural hospital obstetric service aggregation:
   • Collaborate with academic or tertiary institutions that can provide regional clinical expertise
   • Provide training for professionals in healthcare settings that do not have specialty maternity care so that professionals are prepared to deliver babies and provide obstetrics care in birthing-ready environments.
   • Address how regional risk appropriate care will improve health equity for rural populations, including but not limited to Black, Latino, and Indigenous and Native American persons, Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders and other persons of color; members of religious minorities; LGBTQ+ persons; people with disabilities; and people adversely affected by persistent poverty or inequality
2. Approaches to risk appropriate care:
   • Show how the network will ensure pregnant patients in the rural region receive care in a facility that best meets their needs and those of their neonates through appropriate risk stratification
   • Address how rural regions can approach care practices to prioritize referral to an appropriate facility during pregnancy rather than emergent transfer during labor
   • Illustrate how telehealth platforms can support rural clinicians and the obstetric patients they serve and connect patients to specialty care that is otherwise unavailable in the region
   • Assess and address disparities in infant and maternal health outcomes, including among racial and ethnic minority populations and underserved populations in rural areas, frontier areas, maternity care health professional target areas, or jurisdictions of tribes and tribal organizations
3. Financial Sustainability:
   • Show how rural hospitals who have coordinated and aggregated their obstetrics services, in partnership with Medicaid and other payers, can demonstrate improved outcomes and potential savings with the goal of ensuring ongoing support of the network once federal funding ceases.

Eligible applicants are nonprofit and for-profit entities providing prenatal care, labor care, birthing, and postpartum care services in rural areas, frontier areas, medically underserved areas, medically underserved populations, tribes, or tribal organizations.

HRSA Rural Health Grants Eligibility Analyzer

Award ceiling: $1,000,000 per year
Project period: 4 years
Estimated number of awards: 2
Estimated total program funding: $2,000,000

Links to the full announcement, application instructions, and the online application process are available through grants.gov.

Applicants are required to notify the appropriate State Office of Rural Health (SORH) of the intent to apply for this program. Applicants must include a copy of the correspondence sent to the SORH describing the project and any response received to the letter.

Applicant webinar recording