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Rural Health Information Hub
Rural Health Information Hub

Ohio Models and Innovations

These stories feature model programs and successful rural projects that can serve as a source of ideas. Some of the projects or programs may no longer be active. Read about the criteria and evidence-base for programs included.

Evidence-Based Examples

Updated/reviewed March 2024

  • Need: A drug and alcohol prevention program for middle school students that is specific to rural culture.
  • Intervention: An adaptation of the evidence-based keepin' it REAL curriculum was customized for rural middle school students.
  • Results: Students showed a reduction in all substance use and less personal acceptability of substance use.

Effective Examples

Updated/reviewed August 2024

  • Need: Improve healthcare access and decrease chronic disease disparities in rural Appalachia.
  • Intervention: A unique community health worker-based chronic care management program, created with philanthropy support.
  • Results: After a decade of use in attending to population health needs, health outcomes, healthcare costs, in 2024, the medical condition-agnostic model has a 4-year track record of financial sustainability with recent scaling to include 31 rural counties in a 3-state area of Appalachia and recent implementation in urban areas.
funded by the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy

Updated/reviewed November 2018

  • Need: To reduce obesity among adults in rural east central Ohio.
  • Intervention: Fit for Life Replication Project for Expansion was developed to make it possible to lose weight through practicing healthier lifestyle behaviors.
  • Results: Out of the 443 adults who have completed the program, 81% experienced weight loss, a tangible result of the program's overarching goal to enhance levels of health and fitness.

Promising Examples

Updated/reviewed June 2022

  • Need: To reduce smoking rates of pregnant women and adolescents in Appalachian regions of eastern Kentucky and Ohio.
  • Intervention: A web-based smoking cessation program that offered monetary incentives to reducing smoking.
  • Results: Participants significantly reduced smoking rates or quit altogether.

Other Project Examples

Updated/reviewed April 2024

  • Need: To prevent hospital readmissions and improve the recovery process for older adults in rural southern Ohio.
  • Intervention: Hospital2Home identifies individuals who have an elevated risk of hospital readmission and provides vouchers for services like personal care and home-delivered meals.
  • Results: In each of the seven years the program has been in operation, over 85% of participants have avoided readmission in the first two months after hospital discharge.

Updated/reviewed July 2023

  • Need: School-based drug misuse prevention program in Appalachian Ohio, a need triggered by a high school student's overdose death.
  • Intervention: Implementation of the HOPE curriculum, an age-appropriate K through 12th grade drug abuse prevention program.
  • Results: No further drug overdose deaths after curriculum initiated.

Updated/reviewed May 2023

  • Need: To improve health outcomes in rural Appalachian Ohio.
  • Intervention: Schools as a Hub for Health promotes holistic wellness for the whole community by creating or bringing in programs that support physical, mental, and social health.
  • Results: The project has gained administrator buy-in and was featured in a December 2016 County Health Rankings & Roadmaps webinar.

Added April 2021

  • Need: Population health approach to decreasing area deaths from cardiovascular disease.
  • Intervention: A health system-level investment in level II cardiac catheterization services and the required specialized cardiology workforce.
  • Results: Since August 2018, the Avita Health System in north central Ohio has provided local cardiovascular services that have decreased hospital transfers, increased care coordination, and provided education and prevention activities that, with time, will impact population health cardiovascular outcomes.

Updated/reviewed December 2019

  • Need: Organized effort targeting COPD patients' medical needs in order to prevent hospital readmission in Zanesville, Ohio.
  • Intervention: Creation of an integrated system model using nurse navigators that incorporates evidence-based chronic disease care management approaches to COPD care.
  • Results: Improved readmission rates and overall improved acute and chronic care for the area's COPD patients.
funded by the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy

Updated/reviewed July 2019

  • Need: Meeting both advanced practice pharmacy student education needs and patient healthcare needs in a nearby rural/underserved area.
  • Intervention: With support from multiple organizations, students in the Ohio Northern University's College of Pharmacy program use a motor coach to deliver a wide range of healthcare services during scheduled outreach visits.
  • Results: In the program's first two years, point-of-care screening, immunizations, and chronic disease prevention and management education have been provided to 800+ Hardin County, Ohio, residents.

Last Updated: 8/15/2024