Toward A High Performing Rural Health Care System: Key Issues and Recommendations From Rural Health Care Innovators
Charlie Alfero, our founder, was among the Rural Health Care System Innovators to serve on a Rural Health Policy Research Institute’s (RUPRI) Health Panel to discuss strategies and models for rural health care system innovation. Alfero was one of the convened state and community leaders with firsthand knowledge of diverse, innovative health financing and service delivery initiatives as well as national rural health experts and stakeholders. The Health Panel identified the participating rural health care system innovators based on their groundbreaking approaches to health care financing and service delivery.
While the diversity of innovative strategies, programs, and models defies an easy summary of “lessons learned,” the innovators agreed that “incentives and relationships matter.” From that common perspective, the Panel extracted three themes common to many of the innovations:
- Innovative rural models employ flexible financing strategies that incentivize greater collaboration and care coordination across different service systems;
- Initiation and implementation of innovation is effectively supported by infrastructure, including locally based structures, collaborative leadership models, adequate workforce, and data capacity; and
- Innovations have governance and accountability frameworks that support sustained engagement of participating organizations and stakeholders, facilitate transparency, and enable participants to track progress.
Note the publication is linked to the RUPRI website for download.
