Telling the Hospital Story: Rural Health

Brattleboro Memorial, a finalist for the 2026 AHA Rural Health in Innovation Award, created the Mobile Integrated Health Initiative, a program which integrates EMS professionals into coordinated care teams in which paramedics provide in-home assessments, education and other means of support.

Scotland Health at Home began with one goal: Connect patients to treatment, no matter where they were. The program’s work led to Scotland Health Care System being recognized as a finalist for the 2026 AHA Rural Hospital Excellence in Innovation Award.

An Iowa hospital is being recognized for going above and beyond after staff members used an unconventional method to help a patient recover priceless family heirlooms that were accidentally thrown away.

“This was never about technology,” said Muhammad Siddiqui. That sounds like a strange way to describe the project that made Reid Health one of the finalists for the 2026 AHA Rural Hospital Excellence in Innovation Award.

The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) is leveraging digital health to expand diabetes education and support for rural communities across the state, addressing significant access barriers such as long travel distances and limited local resources.

Storks delivering babies may be a flight of fancy, but a real South Dakota maternal-fetal medicine specialist flies hundreds of miles each week to reach rural patients who would otherwise face hours-long drives for specialized care.

Arkansas Children’s Hospital is utilizing telemedicine to expand access to care and support rural hospitals that lack pediatric cardiac MRI and CT expertise.

Maintaining a trained workforce is one of the greatest challenges facing rural hospitals today. In Alabama, the shortage is particularly and increasingly severe, especially when it comes to nurses. East Alabama Health is addressing the problem in multiple ways.

Clifton-Fine Hospital in St. Lawrence County, N.Y., adjacent to the Canadian border, was long challenged by low patient numbers and an outdated, cramped emergency room so small and crowded that staff struggled to treat multiple patients with space or privacy.

The University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix and Onvida Health are partnering to establish Arizona’s first rural regional medical school branch in Yuma County.

Providence, one of the nation’s largest not-for-profit health systems, has partnered with Missoula’s Providence St. Patrick Hospital and the University of Montana to launch RESOLVE, a groundbreaking rural health collaborative.

This fall, Providence Alaska Medical Center launched a new mobile mammography coach designed to bring high-quality breast cancer screening directly to rural communities across the state.

The Senior Behavioral Health Unit at Sharon Hospital, which serves rural northwestern Connecticut, provides short-term inpatient psychiatric care for adults age 55 or older.

Five rural hospitals in Northern California have partnered to restore and expand access to magnetic resonance (MR) imaging through a shared mobile imaging program.

Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital in St. Johnsbury is in the most rural region of an already-rural state. And just like neighbors help each other shovel driveways during Vermont’s legendary winters, NVRH looks to its community to help ensure that the people in their area have the best chance at overall health.

Southport, N.C., is where the Cape Fear river meets the Atlantic Ocean; the location of Fort Johnston, the first fort constructed in the state of North Carolina; and where the Netflix hit series “The Summer I Turned Pretty” was filmed. It is also the home of Dosher Memorial Hospital, the only independent critical access hospital (CAH) left in the state.

What was once going to be empty space is now used for everything from staff meetings to community medical events, but its main purpose is serving as the Rural Medical Education Center, supporting Unity's commitment to health care education at all levels.

Ten independent rural hospitals are establishing the Wisconsin High Value Network to expand access to care, share best practices in serving rural populations and control purchasing costs.

Essentia Health-Fargo recently celebrated a major milestone with the graduation of the first participant to complete its newly launched registered surgical technologist apprenticeship program.

Dahl Memorial’s emergency department in rural Montana relies on physician assistants (PAs) and nurse practitioners to manage critical cases. Patients requiring care beyond its capabilities are medevacked to Montana’s top hospital after stabilization efforts on-site.