Rural Project Examples Addressing Health workforce

Updated/reviewed August 2026

Need: Child care programs across Wisconsin continue to face serious business, staffing, financial, and operational pressures that affect program stability and families' access to care.
Intervention: The Wisconsin Early Education Shared Services Network helps regulated child care programs strengthen business practices, access coaching and technical assistance, use shared resources, and connect with supports that reduce administrative burden.
Results: WEESSN has grown from a regional pilot into a statewide shared services model, currently serving over 3,000 programs and maintaining an active coaching caseload of up to 300 programs per year.

Updated/reviewed July 2026

Need: To help older adults age in place.
Intervention: For four to five months, CAPABLE participants receive home visits from a registered nurse, occupational therapist, and home repair services.
Results: There are currently 35 CAPABLE sites across the country, 13 of which are located in rural communities.

Added July 2026

Need: To improve kidney care for patients in rural Indiana.
Intervention: A nurse-led, interdisciplinary kidney care program redesigned clinical workflows to identify patients earlier, provide education, address barriers to treatment, and support informed decision-making.
Results: From 2023 to 2025, 80% to 92% of patients received Kidney Care Options education before initiating kidney replacement therapy.

Updated/reviewed June 2026

Need: To expand healthcare access in rural Alabama communities.
Intervention: The Auburn University Rural Health Initiative is working with communities across Alabama to develop a healthcare model that includes primary care, substance use disorder treatment and mental health treatment via state-of-the-art telehealth technologies, coupled with health and wellness programs and services provided by faculty and students.
Results: To date, there are five telehealth care stations open, located in LaFayette, Boligee, Akron, Catherine, and Gainesville, Alabama. These stations have impacted over 8,207 individuals, with 284 community events, 3,565 patient consultations, and 50 new health ambassadors.

Added June 2026

Need: To provide rural first responders with training in Mental Health First Aid.
Intervention: A statewide training program created by the Rhode Island State Office of Rural Health and the state Emergency Medical Services (EMS) office.
Results: Every rural fire department in Rhode Island received training.

Added May 2026

Need: To provide chronic disease screening and follow-up services to people in rural North Central Florida.
Intervention: A mobile health program that hosts screenings at community events.
Results: The program has seen at least 225 people per quarter.

Added May 2026

Need: To make sure patients with chronic conditions are educated about, and able to manage, their medical prescriptions and care.
Intervention: A rural primary care-based program that uses a multidimensional team approach to connect rural patients with clinical pharmacists via telehealth.
Results: More than 250 patients have participated in the program.

Updated/reviewed May 2026

Need: To connect patients to resources in order to reduce use of emergency services, emergency department visits, and hospital readmissions.
Intervention: Patients receive support (by in-person visit, phone call, or telehealth visit) from a paramedic, community health nurse, peer recovery specialist, and pharmacist.
Results: Between July 2016 and March 2024, the program made 1,098 patient contacts and continued to see a reduction in emergency department and inpatient visits and costs.

Updated/reviewed April 2026

Need: To provide increased educational opportunities for emergency care personnel in rural and frontier South Dakota.
Intervention: A technologically advanced training was created to enhance the delivery of emergency patient care.
Results: Hundreds of emergency medical services (EMS) staff and volunteers received training that in turn helped them in the field of emergency patient care.

Updated/reviewed April 2026

Need: Increase health profession students' awareness of how plain language and health literacy principles can improve their written and spoken health messaging.
Intervention: Using a writing project that leverages plain language in health messaging, health profession learners participating in rural clinical rotations write health information articles for publication in rural community newspapers.
Results: Since the North Dakota program's start in 2017, nearly 100 students have successfully published articles in about 25 rural newspapers in 3 states. In recent years, increased program visibility has led to reprint and additional articles requests from a variety of state news publications, advocacy organizations, professional societies, and recent model replication in New York.

Rural Project Examples: Health workforce