Top Three Flex Activities in 2009

1. Reduce hospital readmissions by improving care coordination in Pennsylvania's CAHs.
2. CAH Employee Development Program to facilitate self-paced learning of rural relevant performance management, Balanced Scorecard and hospital orientation concepts.
3. To partner with the Pennsylvania Trauma Systems Foundation to offer Rural Trauma Team Development Courses and explore the establishment of Level IV Trauma Centers for Pennsylvania.

Flex Program Success Story

Through a partnership of the Pennsylvania Flex Program, Penn State Management Development and Penn State's Office of Economic and Workforce Development, the Rural Health Care Managers Academy was developed. Over the past two years, the Academy has trained over 130 new and prospective rural hospital staff and EMS and other providers in management and supervisory skills. For the program's capstone project, each hospital or provider team is responsible for completing a project and presenting it to their peers at the annual Pennsylvania Rural Health Conference. The goal of that project is for the participants to put to practical use the skills learned in the Academy and to provide a tangible benefit to their organization.

Most Significant Achievement

The Pennsylvania Critical Access Hospital Consortium has brought together 12 rural hospitals to support performance improvement initiatives through the use of Rural Performance Management (RPM), an on-line performance management system which uses a Balanced Scorecard framework. The Pennsylvania Critical Access Hospitals can manage individual hospital strategy, compare performance among peers and share best practices through the use of this performance management system.

Flex Program Details

The Pennsylvania Office of Rural Health is housed in the College of Health and Human Development of the Pennsylvania State University.

Number of CAHs: 13
Web site: http://www.porh.psu.edu/

Rural Assistance Center State Resources