Month: September 2025

New FMT Resource: Sustaining Rural Labor & Delivery Programs

September 19, 2025

New FMT Resource: Sustaining Rural Labor & Delivery Programs

Over the past decade, hundreds of rural hospitals have stopped offering Labor & Delivery services, and many remaining programs face financial and operational challenges. Drawing on case studies from previous Stroudwater Associates engagements, this resource details three strategies that may bring a Labor & Delivery program closer to sustainability and prevent unnecessary closures in rural areas.

These strategies ensure that Critical Access Hospitals and rural hospitals understand how to properly:

  • Allocate costs and statistics in the Medicare Cost Report to maximize the value created by the Labor & Delivery program,
  • Evaluate the contribution margin of the program, and
  • Leverage other opportunities, such as partnerships and family practice obstetricians, to enhance the efficiency of the program.

This resource can be used by hospitals to support informed decision-making and optimize resource allocation to improve financial sustainability and ensure continued access to Labor & Delivery services in rural communities.

Click Here for Sustaining Rural Labor & Delivery Programs Resource

Webinar: Early Capital Planning Phases, September 24

September 18, 2025

Webinar: Early Capital Planning Phases, September 24

Is your health center considering a renovation, expansion, or new site? The success of any capital project is determined long before the first blueprint is drawn.

The early planning phases -where strategic vision meets operational and financial reality – are the most crucial. This webinar will provide your leadership team with a proven framework to navigate this complex process, align your project with community need, and build a compelling case for funders.

Join Capital Link, a national nonprofit with over 30 years of experience guiding health centers through $1.6 billion in successful capital projects, for this essential deep dive into early-stage planning.

What You Will Learn:

In this actionable session, our experts will guide you through the sequential steps of early project planning:

  • Strategic Alignment:
    • How to ensure your capital project is driven by your mission and informed by a robust, board-led strategic plan, as required by HRSA.
  • Market Justification:
    • Learn how to use data from UDS, EHB Forms, and market mapping tools to define your service area, identify unmet need, and quantitatively justify expansion.
  • Operational Assessment:
    • Methods to evaluate your current operations, staffing, and workflows to forecast future needs and avoid simply recreating existing bottlenecks in a new space.
  • Financial Readiness:
    • How to assess your organization’s financial capacity and debt readiness to undertake a capital project sustainably.
  • The Functional Program:
    • An introduction to translating your operational needs into a preliminary space plan – the essential document that guides architects and funders.

This webinar is designed for health center leaders and teams involved in strategic growth planning, including:

  • CEOs, COOs, and CFOs
  • Board Members
  • Facilities and Operations Directors
  • Project Managers and
  • Development and Strategy Staff

Cost: Free

When: Wednesday, September 24, 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.

Click Here to Register

New Resource: Telehealth for Nutrition Care and Services

September 18, 2025

New Resource: Telehealth for Nutrition Care and Services

Tele-nutrition enables providers to deliver personalized nutrition care to patients using innovative telehealth technologies.

Explore the latest tools and strategies for effective use of telehealth when providing nutrition care.

This National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month, share this tip sheet with your patients so they can see how telehealth helps people of all ages get nutrition care and services from home.

Click Here to see the Latest Tools and Strategies for Telehealth Nutrition Services

Click Here to see Childhood Obesity Tip Sheet

New FMT Product: Rural Resource: Availability of Obstetric Simulation Training by State

September 16, 2025

New FMT Product: Rural Resource: Availability of Obstetric Simulation Training by State

The Flex Monitoring Team (FMT) has released a new product, Rural Resource: Availability of Obstetric Simulation Training by State. Obstetric simulation training is one-way clinical health professionals can maintain skills, which is of particular importance for rural hospitals with low birth volumes and for rural hospitals that do not have obstetric un8its but need to remain prepared for obstetric emergencies.

This environmental scan includes a list of obstetric simulation trainings by state as well as national and regional offerings, Fifteen trainings identified have a specific rural focus, and each training includes a link to the program, a description, the intended audience, and whether the training includes a mobile unit.

Critical Access Hospitals can use this resource to identify available trainings in their state or neighboring states, foster new partnerships with organizations offering simulation training, or use as examples of rural-specific training programs.

Click Here to View Resource

 

Whitepaper: CMUs are Cutting Waste, Boosting Safety: Results From 3 Health Systems

September 16, 2025

Whitepaper: CMUs are Cutting Waste, Boosting Safety: Results From 3 Health Systems

Many hospitals still rely on outdated telemetry setups, overworked nurses doing “drive-by” checks, or systems flooded with 350+ daily alarms per patient.

These models lead to delays, over-monitoring, alarm fatigue and compromised safety.

This report shows why leading systems are rethinking the model with centralized monitoring units (CMUs) that scale across hospitals and support smarter staffing.

Key takeaways include:

  • The CMU model to reduce excess telemetry systemwide by 10%,
  • How to save 8 hours/day with technology, and
  • Health First’s approach to buying new technology and creating savings.

Cost: Free

Click Here to Download Whitepaper

Webinar: From Legacy ERP to Lasting Security: A Smarter Archival Strategy for Hospitals, September 19

September 16, 2025

Webinar: From Legacy ERP to Lasting Security: A Smarter Archival Strategy for Hospitals, September 19

Hospitals are sunsetting outdated systems but holding onto the data – and with it, the risk.

Legacy ERP platforms often store sensitive information like W-2s, salary data and vendor contracts. Yet these systems lack modern security controls and remain vulnerable to breach. Many health systems maintain access solely for compliance or audit purposes, not realizing they’re exposing sensitive data and wasting resources in the process.

In this session, you’ll learn how hospital IT, operations and compliance teams can use data archival to reduce risk, cut costs and ensure long-term access.

Join this session to learn how to?

  • Identify hidden threats tied to legacy ERP data retention,
  • Reduce your organization’s attack surface,
  • Use archival strategies to meet compliance needs without keeping outdated systems online.

Cost: Free

When: Friday, September 19, 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.

Click Here to Register

Webinar: Why Virtual-first is Gaining Traction in Cardiovascular Care, September 19

September 16, 2025

Webinar: Why Virtual-first is Gaining Traction in Cardiovascular Care, September 19

Heart disease remains the leading cause of death in the U.S., but early detection and timely intervention remain out of reach for many – especially in rural and underserved communities.

Some health systems are rethinking how care is delivered.

Join this session to learn how virtual-first cardiovascular models are improving access, enhancing detection and driving measurable improvements in outcomes. You’ll hear from Jeff Wessler, MD – a Northwell Health cardiologist and founder and CEO of Heartbeat Health – and other leaders on how to vuild scalable virtual pathways that blend diagnostics, AI and clinician collaboration into a more connected model of care.

Key takeaways:

  • How to engage hard-to-reach populations with virtual-first care models,
  • Where AI powered diagnostics fit in clinical care pathways and population health workflows, and
  • What real-world programs are doing to improve HEDIS scores and CMS star ratings while reducing cost.

Cost: Free

When: Friday, September 19, 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Click Here to Register

Research Alert: Comparing Utilization of Home Health Care Between Traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage by Rural-Urban Status

September 12, 2025

Research Alert: Comparing Utilization of Home Health Care Between Traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage by Rural-Urban Status

This report describes differences in utilization of home health care between beneficiaries enrolled in Traditional Medicare (TM) and Medicare Advantage (MA), a publicly-funded, privately managed option for Medicare beneficiaries, and by rural-urban status. Researchers examined differences in use of home health overall, provision of specific services during home health, and receipt of care from high-quality home health agencies by enrollment in TM and MA, including plan type (e.g., preferred provider organization, health maintenance organization), and by rural-urban status, including intra-rural variation.

Key Findings:

  • Beneficiaries enrolled in MA who are also living in rural communities may be underutilizing home health.
    • Compared to beneficiaries enrolled in MA, regardless of type of MA plan.
    • Utilization of home health was also significantly lower among beneficiaries living in rural versus urban communities, with progressively decreasing likelihood of home health utilization as rurality increased.
  • Beneficiaries enrolled in MA were also significantly less likely to receive care form a high-quality home health agency compared to beneficiaries enrolled in TM, regardless of MA plan type, but there was no association between receiving care from a high-quality home health agency and rural-urban status.
  • Utilization of specific services during home health varied based on enrollment in MA versus TM and rural-urban status.
    • In general, utilization of specific services was significantly lower for beneficiaries enrolled in MA compared to TM, but this pattern was not consistent for all services across all types of MA plans.
    • Beneficiaries living in rural communities generally had significantly lower utilization of physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech-language pathology, and medical social work services, but significantly higher utilization of home health aide services.

Click Here to Read Full Research Article

September is National Recovery Month

September 12, 2025

September is National Recovery Month

September is National Recovery Month observed every September to promote and support new evidence-based treatment and recovery practices, the nation’s strong and proud recovery communities, and the dedication of service providers and communities who make recovery possible.

A variety of federal resources are available to support individuals and their families:

To learn more about programs created by HRSA’s Federal Office of Rural Health Policy to support recovery, visit the Rural Communities Opioid Response Program (RCORP) on HRSA’s website. Each of the RCORP Centers of Excellence provides a clearinghouse of information and resources for prevention, treatment, and recovery that are specific to rural communities.

Click Here for SAMHSA’s National Recovery Month Toolkit

Click Here for CDC’s Stigma Reduction Guide

Click Here for NIDA’s Preferred Language for Talking About Addiction

Whitepaper: From Burnout to Better Benefits: What 4.5M Healthcare Workers Want Now

September 12, 2025

Whitepaper: From Burnout to Better Benefits: What 4.5M Healthcare Workers Want Now

Financial stress, burnout and benefit dissatisfaction are driving turnover across healthcare – but new data from 4.5 million nonprofit healthcare workers reveals a path forward for employers.

Based on survey insights from more than 1.5 million nurses and 500,000 physicians, this report highlights the disconnect between what healthcare workers need and what benefit programs currently deliver. It outlines how HR, benefits and finance leaders can better support a multigenerational workforce – while improving retention, engagement and long-term retirement readiness.

Download to learn:

  • The top 3 benefits that drive loyalty and how leading systems are delivering them,
  • What successful organizations are doing to address student debt and financial stress head-on, and
  • How to evolve your total rewards strategy to meet future workforce expectations and ROI goals.

Click Here to Download the Whitepaper