Rural Spotlight

Webinar: Safety in Numbers: Why Generative AI with Proven ROI is a Hospital’s Best Friend, October 27

October 14, 2025

Webinar: Safety in Numbers: Why Generative AI with Proven ROI is a Hospital’s Best Friend, October 27

Healthcare organizations face a critical balancing act of maximizing AI’s transformative capabilities, while ensuring safety in patient care and measurable ROI. Faced with competitive pressure to quickly put AI solutions into practice, the stakes could not be higher, moving too quickly risks patient safety, and moving too slowly with its adoption risks falling behind.

In this session led by Dr. Ruben Amarasingham, CEO of Pieces Technologies, physician executive leaders from Children’s Health, Houston Methodist Cypress, CHRISTUS Health and MetroHealth will share their tested recommendations for responsibly rolling out generative AI. They’ll share practical insights on securing clinician buy-in, maintaining rigorous safety standards, and demonstrating clear ROI – while offering a roadmap that other health systems can follow to accelerate AI adoption without compromising care quality.

Insights Include:

  • How health systems are approaching “human-in-the-loop” design to keep clinicians engaged,
  • What executives are doing to validate and demonstrate early ROI from generative AI, and
  • Why AI governance and safety frameworks need to be top of mind – even facing mounting pressures to scale.

Cost: Free

When: Monday, October 27, 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.

Click Here to Register

Whitepaper: RCM Without Burnout: What Smarter Hospitals are doing Differently

October 14, 2025

Whitepaper: RCM Without Burnout: What Smarter Hospitals are doing Differently

For many community hospitals, revenue cycle management is becoming unsustainable – with outdated billing workflows, rising denial rates and staffing gaps straining both margins and mission.

Outsourcing it isn’t a new concept, but few hospitals have used it as a true strategy for sustainable growth.

This whitepaper offers a practical roadmap for rethinking RCM through strategic outsourcing, showing how hospitals can offload complexity, stabilize cash flow and protect care quality without overextending internal teams.

Download to Explore:

  • The 3 questions every hospital should ask prospective RCM partners,
  • How outsourcing improves patient experience and reduces staff burnout, and
  • Key signs your current RCM strategy may be doing more harm than good.

Click Here to Download Whitepaper

Webinar: From Data to Decisions: How Leading Healthcare Systems are Finding New Value in Patient-Reported Outcomes, October 16

October 14, 2025

Webinar: From Data to Decisions: How Leading Healthcare Systems are Finding New Value in Patient-Reported Outcomes, October 16

Siloed patient-reported outcome (PRO) initiatives leave data unused and front-line teams unsupported. Norton Healthcare, Lehigh Valley Health Network, Endeavor Health, and Northwestern Medicine are taking a different path – embedding PROs across their organizations to shape care delivery, guide innovation, and meet regulatory demands.

In this webinar, physician leaders and executives from these systems and PatientIQ will share real-world strategies for moving beyond disconnected surveys to a unified, enterprise-wide approach. They’ll unpack lessons from implementation and the ROI of treating PROs as a strategic resource.

Key takeaways:

  • How to align PROs with clinical and quality improvement initiatives,
  • Infrastructure and workflows to scale PROs across service lines, and
  • Why more health systems are investing in PROs for patient engagement and decision making.

Cost: Free

When: Thursday, October 16, 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Click Here to Register

October is “Let’s Talk Month” in Missouri – Resources Available

October 14, 2025

October is “Let’s Talk Month” in Missouri – Resources Available

Governor Mike Kehoe has officially proclaimed October as “Let’s Talk Month” in Missouri, recognizing the importance of open, honest and ongoing communication between adults and youth about health and well-being.

The proclamation highlights the state’s commitment to fostering meaningful dialogue around adolescent health. The initiative is led by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) through its Adolescent and School Health Program.

“Let’s Talk Month” aims to encourage trusted adults – parents, teachers, mentors and caregivers – to engage in conversations with young people about topics that impact their physical, emotional and mental health. To support these efforts, DHSS is promoting a suite of tools and resources designed to make these conversations easier and more effective.

Among the featured tools is the “Connect with Me” resource, available as both a mobile app and a physical card set. The tool offers conversation starters organized by youth-relevant themes such as body image, mental health and relationships. These prompts are intended to help adults and youth navigate discussions that may not arise naturally.

Additional materials, including pamphlets and topic-specific guides, are available for free through the DHSS website. The Adolescent and School Health Program continues to expand its offerings and welcomes suggestions for future resources to better serve Missouri’s youth and those who support them.

Download the Connect With Me app, or to access the Connect with Me tools or order printed materials, visit Health.mo.gov/Connect.

 

Webinar: What’s in the Box?! Decreasing Medication Errors in the Last Mile, October 23

October 14, 2025

Webinar: What’s in the Box?! Decreasing Medication Errors in the Last Mile, October 23

Logistics are typically placed into a separate category from the upstream clinical workflow in the pharmacy. However, there are impactful solutions – both old and new that are quickly becoming the standard of practice as the stakes are raised unanimously across this industry. This presentation will be a hybrid retro and prospective in medication safety principles after the point of final verification.

Learning Points

  • Define the types of errors that occur in the last mile and their root causes,
  • Recall medication safety principles and technologies that can be applied to reduce last-mile errors, and
  • Name cultural and strategic approaches to error prevention, including just culture and data-driven continuous improvement.

Cost: Free

When: Thursday, October 23, 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Click Here to Register

Registration Now Open: 2025 Annual Rural Health Day Celebration, November 20

October 9 2025

Registration Now Open: 2025 Annual Rural Health Day Celebration, November 20

Since 2011, the National Organization of State Offices of Rural Health (NOSORH) has set aside the third Thursday of November to celebrate the “Power of Rural” on National Rural Health Day (NRHD).

This day is an opportunity to bring attention to and honor the incredible efforts of rural healthcare providers, communities, and organizations. Please join DHSS’s Office of Rural Health and Primary Care (ORHPC) this year’s Power of Rural Celebration.

Cost: No Charge

When: Thursday, November 20, 2025,

  • Check in and networking 9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m.
  • Main event and presentations 10:00 a.m. –   3:00 p.m.

Where:

Capital Bluffs Event Center

1616 Oil Well Road

Jefferson City, MO 65101

Registration is required as we will be serving lunch and need an accurate head count.

Please Click Here to Register

CAP-CT Learning Collaborative, Apply by November 7

October 8, 2025

CAP-CT Learning Collaborative, Apply by November 7

Identifying and engaging caregivers improves health outcomes and quality of life for both the person receiving care and their caregivers!

During this 12-month learning collaborative, participating health care delivery sites will pilot a care process of their choosing to help teams identify, engage, and support family caregivers. Participants will benefit from peer learning while advancing their own goals for improving caregiver support within their organization. Participants will also be supported by CAP-CT training and resources.

Outcomes from the collaborative will inform an implementation toolkit that will be shared widely to facilitate greater adoption of care processes that help health care teams identify, engage, and support family caregivers.

Why Participate:

  • Align with national initiatives:
    • Reinforce your organization’s commitment to Age-Friendly Health Systems, the GUIDE model, or other caregiver-inclusive models.
  • Receive financial support:
    • Offset participation with a stipend.
  • Support and learn from peers:
    • Engage in cross-system learning with other innovative organizations, and
  • Gain recognition:
    • Be featured in a publicly shared implementation toolkit.

Eligibility:

This collaborative is open to health care delivery sites in adult inpatient settings. Individuals from the participating sites should be in a leadership role with the authority to make operational or process improvements, e.g., for a department, division, unit, etc.

Participation Stipend:

Participating sites will be offered a stipend of $8,000 for the time spent engaged in the learning collaborative, as outlined in the participant expectations.

Apply by November 7, 2025.

Click Here to Learn More and Apply

Webinar: From Data to Decisions: How Leading Healthcare Systems are Finding New Value in Patient-Reported Outcomes, October 16

October 8, 2025

Webinar: From Data to Decisions: How Leading Healthcare Systems are Finding New Value in Patient-Reported Outcomes, October 16

Siloed patient-reported outcome (PRO) initiatives leave data unused and front-line teams unsupported. Norton Healthcare, Lehigh Valley Health Network, Endeavor Health, and Northwestern Medicine are taking a different path – embedding PROs across their organizations to shape care delivery, guide innovation, and meet regulatory demands.

In this webinar, physician leaders and executives from these systems and PatientIQ will share real-world strategies for moving beyond disconnected surveys to a unified, enterprise-wide approach. They’ll unpack lessons from implementation and the ROI of treating PROs as a strategic resource.

Key Takeaways:

  • How to align PROs with clinical and quality improvement initiatives,
  • Infrastructure and workflows to scale PROs across service lines, and
  • Why more health systems are investing in PROs for patient engagement and decision-making.

Cost: Free

When: Thursday, October 16, 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Click Here to Register

Webinar: How MedStar Freed 24K Hours of OR Time and Expanded Patient Access, October 15

October 8, 2025

Webinar: How MedStar Freed 24K Hours of OR Time and Expanded Patient Access, October 15

Disjointed scheduling policies. Manual workflows. Limited real-time data. These inefficiencies once hampered MedStar Health’s 10-hospital network – until a new, data-driven access strategy changed the trajectory.

Through standardized block management, cloud-based scheduling tools and a systemwide governance model, MedStar unlocked more than 24,000 hours of OR time. This transformation took place even as the organization transitioned its HER across 300+ sites of care.

In this webinar, hear how MedStar’s perioperative leaders improved surgical access, increased block utilization and built trust across teams.

You’ll learn how they used real-time data to shift culture and sustain gains across one of the Mid-Atlantic’s largest health systems – including:

  • 30% drop in abandoned and unreleased block time,
  • 9,900 open-time releases filled, securing 24,700 hours of scheduled cases, and
  • 34-day average in proactive block release.

Cost: Free

When: Wednesday, October 15, 1:00 – 2:00 p.m.

Click Here to Register

Webinar: The Future of Workforce Planning, Simplified – Executive Physician Workforce Panel, October 15

October 8, 2025

Webinar: The Future of Workforce Planning, Simplified – Executive Physician Workforce Panel, October 15

C-Suite leaders and physician executives face growing pressure to retain top talent, close workforce pipeline gaps and plan for sustainable growth. This panel will explore how two leading health systems are leveraging technology, centralized planning and data-driven insights to build resilient physician workforce roadmaps that align well-being, retention and development with long-term organizational outcomes.

Attendees will see how centralizing operations through tech – from AI-powered scheduling to integrated analytics – streamlines processes, reduces costs and elevates care quality. Panelists will share actionable strategies for modernizing workforce planning while ensuring true partnership between clinical and executive leadership.

Key Takeaways:

  • Explore strategic workforce roadmaps that support retention and well-being,
  • See how technology closes pipeline gaps and improves forecasting, and
  • Learn best practices to centralize operations and enhance efficiency.

Cost: Free

When: Wednesday, October 15, 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.

Click Here to Register