All 50 states hold first-year Rural Health Transformation Program awards, each tied to a state-authored plan. DRHC is a working, IRB-backed way to spend against the digital-access piece of that plan.
All 50 states have received first-year awards under the federal Rural Health Transformation Program, each tied to a state-authored plan to strengthen rural health. Rural workforce development and technology innovation are named strategic goals of the program. Digital access is among the priorities states have laid out. Telehealth, patient portals, remote monitoring: every tool assumes a patient who can navigate it.
We understand, from listening, that the barrier isn't just broadband access. It's navigability: the ability to understand, trust, and use what's been built. Older patients. Patients with lower health literacy. Patients who haven't had a reason to engage digitally before.
DRHC was built around two of those goals. Medical and pre-medical students deploy to rural communities, learn, train community trainers, and gather patient and community insights of a kind no state has had before. The data states and communities need to understand what is actually working.
Yours could be a good fit if you have deployment-partner capacity (AHEC, FQHC, health system, or academic) and a real digital access problem in your rural counties.
Year 1, we guide you through the framework adaptation, the platform onboarding, +. Year 2 and onward can take different paths, but at this point, you will have a foundation established, as well as data to help you guide what comes next.
Multiple partnership structures, from fully supported deployment through AHEC Scholars integration. We'll walk you through the process of determining which best suits your state.
