(WTAJ) — Major federal cuts to how rural healthcare is funded has left some local medical experts concerned that resources may become scarce.
The Commonwealth’s Health Transformation Program is the state’s outline for how they plan to spend their cut of the $10 billion that the federal government set aside for funding rural healthcare over the next year. It details the state’s push to bolster hospital staffs and deliver some clinical services outside of a traditional setting.
The Rural Health Transformation Program (RHT) is a $50 billion initiative meant to replace a previous federal funding plan of $1.2 trillion. From now until 2030, $10 billion will be released each year for the 50 states to fight for. Pennsylvania now has to figure out how to provide services for the third largest rural population in the nation using only a small fraction of that funding.
Pennsylvania Health Transformation ProgramDownload
“We think that there’s plenty of additional at risk hospitals that could face closure. I know we’ve talked in the past about the kind of deserts for maternal health all across Pennsylvania. I don’t think that there’s going to be enough money in this initiative to try to fix, you know, what’s already really broken,” said Matt Yarnell, President of SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania, the largest union representing healthcare workers in the state.
Yarnell said the union is happy for any action but has some concerns.
“We have to do something and there’s resources set aside. I think it’s, again, not anywhere near what the impact of the cuts are going to be,” Yarnell said.
Pennsylvania is receiving $193 million. Most of the money will be allocated to sixth through eighth class counties locally including Bedford, Cameron, Clearfield, Elk, Huntingdon, Jefferson and Somerset Counties, many of which are already experiencing substantial loss of medical services. The plan is focused on providing better care for veterans, pregnant women and individuals with disabilities, chronic disease and behavioral health concerns.
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“That fund will bring, all told, about $1 billion into the Commonwealth over the next five years. And in that piece, that plan in particular is solely focused on our rural communities,” said Department of Human Services Secretary Valerie Arkoosh in an interview with WTAJ News in February.
WTAJ News spoke with Arkoosh about the growing maternal care desert in the state’s northern region in February. She said she hopes this plan will get care to families in the most rural areas and that the state is getting creative with creating services.
“We will be able to help provide funding to maybe buy that equipped van that could literally go to meet patients and bring health care to them. For folks that are quite a distance from where there might be other care,” Arkoosh said.
The mobile health units will focus on providing primary care services, behavioral health care and OBGYN services.
“The vision is that there’ll be a centralized access point for comprehensive, coordinated maternity care and opportunity for somebody to not have to drive quite so far to get that blood pressure check or other just regular checkups during their pregnancy, and that it’ll be a place where people can get access to other services as well,” Arkoosh said.
But not everyone feels these health hubs are the solution to the hemorrhaging of maternal care services — especially since the hubs will not increase options for women when it’s time to give birth.
“It feels like for maternal care it might be a half step, but it does feel like, more longer term, having some kind of access for maternal care in rural areas is going to be really important,” Yarnell said.
Other goals outlined in the plan including expanding telehealth access and connecting 85% of rural hospitals to telehealth services, reducing hospital staff vacancy rates by hiring more nurses and physicians, and integrating artificial intelligence into clinical settings to take over some bedside nursing tasks like admissions, discharges, documentation and patient education. The state hopes giving those tasks to AI will help reduce provider burnout.
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Yarnell said the union strongly supports hiring more healing hands and doesn’t necessarily oppose AI integration into care settings, but would like a seat at the table to help determine what this path forward would look like.
“I think everyone is looking for efficiencies. And, you know, I think that folks would say that efficiencies are good, largely. And at the same time I think that we’ve got to make sure that we’re engaging the people who are the point of care and what’s going to be the best tools to help them be able to do their jobs more efficiently,” Yarnell said.
The RHT application outlines big plans the state hopes will address some big problems, but it’s unclear when those measures will roll out. In February, Arkoosh said the state was in the final stages of contracts but some of their main goals have target completion dates between 2027 and 2030.
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