Rural Spotlight

MHA Health Institute: Infection Prevention Academy, June 2 – July 28

May 14, 2026

MHA Health Institute: Infection Prevention Academy, June 2 – July 28

This academy will prepare infection prevention health care professionals, both new to their role and those seeking an excellent knowledge refresher, to be facilitators and resources for surveillance, prevention and control of infections.

Professionals who are new to infection prevention responsibilities will learn how to manage the everyday duties of infection surveillance, analyze disease data, and identify problems and resolutions. It will enhance existing programs through a presentation of current guidelines and evidence-based practices applicable to infection control programs, product selection and evaluation.

Cost: MHA Health Institute coupon eligible

  • MHA Members – $400
  • Non Members – $500

When: Tuesdays, June 2 through July 28, 1:00 p.m. – 2:15 p.m.

Click Here to Register

Sixth Annual Virtual Critical Access Hospital Conference, June 9

May 14, 2026

Sixth Annual Virtual Critical Access Hospital Conference, June 9

Don’t miss Stroudwater Associates’ Sixth Annual CAH Conference. This virtual conference was created to equip Critical Access Hospital leaders with the strategies, tools, and insights they need to thrive – not just survive. Now in its sixth year, this event brings together clinical, financial, operational, and strategic best practices and real-world case studies from Critical Access Hospitals.

Stroudwater’s team of rural healthcare experts shares down-to-earth, actionable guidance rooted in decades of experience working with hundreds of hospitals nationwide. We’re driven by a deep belief that every rural community deserves access to high-quality, sustainable care.

Stroudwater Associates will cover a range of topics, which include:

  • Building the Rural Workforce of the Future
  • CAH Financial & Operational Best Practices: The High-Impact Levers That Move the Needle
  • CAH Strategic Risk: Moving from Vulnerability to Sustainability
  • From Gap to Growth: How One Hospital Build a Swing Bed Program to Improve Care Delivery
  • The Future of Rural Healthcare: Strategies for Success
  • Planning for the Future: Evaluating Rural Facility Needs Through a Strategic and Financial Lens
  • Service Line Development Best Practices: Grounding Growth in Financial and Operational Realities
  • Strengthening Revenue Cycle Performance: Aligning Internal Teams and External partners to Drive Financial Performance, and
  • MORE!

Cost: Free

When: Tuesday, June 9, 10:00 a.m. – Thursday, Jun 18, 2:00 p.m.

Click Here to Register

Webinar: From Call Center Bottlenecks to Patient Self-Service: How Healthcare Organizations Keep Scheduling Moving with AI and Automation, May 27

May 14, 2026

Webinar: From Call Center Bottlenecks to Patient Self-Service: How Healthcare Organizations Keep Scheduling Moving with AI and Automation, May 27

Every week starts the same way for most access teams:

  • Phones spike at once,
  • Queues build before staff can catch up, and
  • Patients abandon calls at rates that climb to double digits.

It’s a predictable surge that creates missed appointments early in the week and extra work later on.

This webinar brings forward what organizations are learning as they use automated scheduling pathways to stabilize that Monday pattern. Megan L. Kerrick, Director of Administrative Operations at Virginia Urology, will share how their call center and self-service channels work together to absorb demand, keep scheduling decisions accurate, and reduce the manual follow-up that slows teams down.

You will learn:

  • How healthcare organizations keep scheduling decisions consistent across call center and self-service channels, ensuring patients land in the right place the first time,
  • How automation, including voice AI, absorbs patient demand during peak periods and prevents queues from stacking up, and
  • How structured, automated call handling reduces the downstream follow-up work that weighs teams down later in the week.

As demand concentrates at the start of the week, automation becomes a defining capability for both patient experience and operational performance. This session highlights the insights that matter most for delivering a more resilient, patient-driven scheduling experience.

Cost: Free

When: Wednesday, May 27, 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Click Here to Register

On-Demand Webinar: A Clearer Picture of Healthcare’s Supply Chain – Built on More Than Spend Data

May 14, 2026

On-Demand Webinar: A Clearer Picture of Healthcare’s Supply Chain – Built on More Than Spend Data

Imagine a supply chain function that secedes in real time, not in retrospect – one connected to clinical workflows, utilization patterns and patient demographics, not just invoices and purchase orders.

That shift is what separates a procurement-driven model from an enterprise intelligence layer. It changes the questions leaders can answer, the speed of response and the role supply chain plays in strategic performance.

In this on-demand discussion, two senior supply chain executives lay out why traditional procure-to-pay approaches fall short and how AI-powered platforms are integrating clinical, patient, demographic and utilization data into one decision environment.

Key learnings include:

  • The structural limits of P2P-based decision-making,
  • Why real-time intelligence requires more than spend data,
  • How AI shifts decisions from retrospective to in-workflow, and
  • What an enterprise intelligence layer enables across functions.

Click Here to Download this On-Demand Webinar

Webinar: CMS Emergency Preparedness Requirements, May 26

May 14, 2026

Webinar: CMS Emergency Preparedness Requirements, May 26

This webinar focuses on helping healthcare professionals strengthen their emergency preparedness and ensure readiness for unexpected disasters.

In this session, you will gain a clear understanding of the key requirements for emergency preparedness in healthcare settings. You will also learn how to identify and apply best practices to build and strengthen an effective disaster preparedness program.

You will learn:

  • How to interpret and apply CMS emergency preparedness requirements in your organization,
  • The role of healthcare coalitions in coordinated disaster response and community readiness,
  • Common compliance gaps and how to proactively address them, and
  • Practical, actionable strategies to strengthen emergency operations planning and response.

Target Audience:

  • Healthcare leaders,
  • Safety and quality professionals,
  • Facilities managers, and
  • Emergency preparedness coordinators responsible for regulatory compliance and operational readiness.

Cost: Free

When: Tuesday, May 26, 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Click Here to Register

Whitepaper: Illinois FQHC Uses EHR Education as a Strategic Lever for Performance

May 14, 2026

Whitepaper: Illinois FQHC Uses EHR Education as a Strategic Lever for Performance

Imagine scaling EHR workflow training across 35 health centers with just four trainers – without relying on classroom instruction.

That was the reality for Access Community Health Network (ACCESS), Illinois’ largest federally qualified health center. Rather than expand headcount, ACCESS redesigned its Epic education strategy to embed learning directly within the EHR.

By centralizing simulations, tip sheets and workflow resources inside Epic – supported by a knowledge hub – the team ensured clinicians could access support at the moment of need. Early collaboration with analysts and clinical leaders kept education aligned with operational priorities.

During the 2024 transition to electronic prior authorizations, the results were measurable:

  • Denials decreased 15 – 25%
  • Help desk requests fell 30%
  • Clinicians regained 130+ hours per month, and
  • Electronic prior authorization adoption reached 99%.

ACCESS demonstrates that effective EHR education is not about larger teams – it is about alignment, embedded design and measurable outcomes.

Download the case study to see how training can drive operational efficiency, clinician productivity and a stronger patient experience.

Click Here to Download this Whitepaper

Whitepaper: Ambulatory Control: How Leaders Can Optimize Physician Operations for Sustainable Health System Growth

May 14, 2026

Whitepaper: Ambulatory Control: How Leaders Can Optimize Physician Operations for Sustainable Health System Growth

Outpatient revenue is growing at nearly twice the rate of inpatient – yet in many health systems, ambulatory operations remain fragmented and disconnected from health system strategy. The result: referral leakage, blocked demand, provider burnout and budgets built on assumptions instead of operational reality.

This playbook reframes ambulatory care as the most strategic lever health systems have to stabilize margin and drive growth. It outlines a five-part framework that high-performing organizations are using to move from reactive, siloed clinic management to enterprise-level governance with shared accountability and financial clarity.

Organizations applying this model have seen measurable results, including $15.2 million in revenue unlocked through enterprise-wide ambulatory data integration, a 36% reduction in no-show rates and a 29% increase in schedule template utilization.

Whether you are managing access bottlenecks, referral retention or workforce strain, this playbook connects each challenge to a disciplined, repeatable operating model.

Key takeaways:

  • How fragmented ambulatory data leads to missed revenue and operational blind spots,
  • A five-lever framework covering access, provider engagement, referral integrity, financial transparency and governance,
  • Key metrics and leadership questions for each lever to benchmark performance, and
  • Real-world results from organizations governing ambulatory as an integrated business line.

Click Here to Download this Whitepaper

Webinar: How to Become the Top Choice for Local Patient Care: Reputation, Visibility and Trust in the AI Era, May 21

May 14, 2026

Webinar: How to Become the Top Choice for Local Patient Care: Reputation, Visibility and Trust in the AI Era, May 21

Imagine a patient asking an AI assistant to find the best hospital nearby – and your organization doesn’t appear. Not because of care quality, but because your digital reputation doesn’t reflect it.

This session will give you a clear framework for building the kind of online presence that earns visibility in both traditional and AI-driven search – so your organization shows up when and where patients are looking.

Baptist Memorial Health Care is already doing this work. In just two years, the system scaled from 4,000 to more than 50,000 annual reviews, raised its average rating from 4.4 to 4.7 stars and earned Best in Class reputation awards for 400-plus locations. Their experience offers a practical roadmap for health systems ready to take reputation strategy seriously.

Join this conversation to learn what it takes to turn patient feedback into a competitive advantage.

  • How Baptist Memorial Health Care built a systemwide reputation strategy that delivered measurable results,
  • Why reviews and patient sentiment are now critical to visibility in AI-powered search,
  • How to position your organization as the top choice when patients use conversational AI to find care, and
  • Actionable steps to operationalize feedback collection and strengthen patient trust at scale.

Cost: Free

When: Thursday, May 21, 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.

Click Here to Register

On-Demand Webinar: The End of the Inpatient-Only List: What Providers Need to Know

May 14, 2026

On-Demand Webinar: The End of the Inpatient-Only List: What Providers Need to Know

CMS is once again proposing that Medicare phase out the Inpatient-Only List. While the proposal faces feedback and review, it would be a major regulatory shift for hospitals impacting how inpatient admissions are justified, documented and reimbursed with implications for compliance, revenue integrity and care planning.

In this webinar, Dr. Ronald Hirsch, vice president of Regulations and Education, provides expert strategies for managing this major policy change to avoid claim denials and revenue loss.

Watch this webinar and earn continuing education credit while exploring these key learning objectives:

  • Understanding CMS’s approach to phasing out IPO procedures,
  • Accurately determining and documenting inpatient admission status,
  • Anticipating the impact on Medicare beneficiaries,
  • Addressing admission status challenges with Medicare Advantage plans, and
  • Evaluating how non-Medicare payers may respond to the IPO list changes.

Cost: Free

Click Here to Access this On-Demand Webinar

Group Prenatal Care in Rural Areas

May 14, 2026

Group Prenatal Care in Rural Areas

This Issue Brief, developed by the FORHP-funded Rural Maternal Health Data Support and Analysis Program, describes how prenatal care can be delivered in a group setting in rural communities, drawing from the experiences of a Rural Maternity and obstetrics Management Strategies (Rural MOMS) network in northern Minnesota. It also shares lessons learned from other group-oriented maternal health services provided by FORHP-funded networks.

Click Here to Read Issue Brief

Click Here to Read More About Rural MOMS Program