Participation Expectations

Selected hospitals should exhibit strong leadership and a commitment to fully engage in Rural Hospital Stabilization Program (RHSP) services and activities to meet the program’s purpose of 1) improving financial and operational efficiency, 2) expanding current services, and/or 3) adding new service lines and/or expanding service lines to meet local need and keep health care services available locally.  

Program Expectations

To benefit from RHSP, selected participants agree to meet and complete the program expectations listed below: 

  • Selected hospitals must be ready, willing, and able to actively engage in all facets of the program and its activities. 
  • Commit as a hospital team to timely participation by reserving dates, submitting data on time, engaging in education, adopting best practices, and implementing action plans. 
  • Follow up with the National Rural Health Resource Center (The Center) to demonstrate measurable outcomes. 

Role of Board of Directors 

The Board of Directors (BOD) play a critical role in the overall health of the selected hospital; their support is essential to success in the RHSP Program. Therefore, the selected hospital’s BOD is expected to provide support to Executive Leadership to: 

  1. Sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for the selected hospital to participate in the Program. 
  2. Fully participate in all facets of the Program to meet expectations and fulfill the Program purpose to: 1) improve financial and operational performance, 2) expand existing services and/or develop new services line, and 3) engage the community and market locally available health care services. 
  3. Complete the full participation cycle to successfully graduate from the Program.

Role of Executive Leadership 

Chief Executive Officers (CEO) of selected hospitals should be ready, willing, and able to fulfill each of the following responsibilities: 

Sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for the selected hospital to participate in the Program. 

  • Be fully engaged in all facets of the Program. 
  • Ensure that full data requests are submitted on time, and deadlines are met. 
  • Schedule and hold the mutually agreed upon dates for on-site and virtual consultations. Once secured, dates may not be rescheduled. 
  • Commit necessary time to support participation in the project, including adequate time for executive and management teams, and other appropriate staff to actively participate in project activities. 
  • Build support for the project with the board of directors, front-line staff and medical staff. 
  • Use available best practices, resources, and tools to support the implementation of consultant recommendations. 
  • Develop action plans with project consultants and The Center staff to support the implementation process. 
  • Delegate actionable steps to executive and management teams to implement best practice recommendations and action plan items. 
  • Direct the Community Engagement Champion to support marketing of services. 
  • Participate in peer-to-peer learning sessions such as the Hospital Learning Collaborative and Annual Summit to share success and lessons learned. 
  • Share successes and lessons learned with peer hospitals through the project’s learning collaboratives. 
  • Failure to fully participate in all aspects of the Program, submit required reporting and data requests and demonstrate progress toward Program purpose may result in discontinued Program services. 

Pending Projects 

Selected hospitals should not have any pending projects or anticipated issues that would hinder the Program process, including, but not limited to, the following examples: 

  • If the hospital is affiliated with a system, the system must support RHSP participation by completing and submitting any necessary data requests. 
  • If the hospital is currently working on a large project (such as a health information technology deployment), the executive team must ensure that management and staff time will be appropriately committed to fully support RHSP activities. 

Questions?

Please contact stabilization@ruralcenter.org for more information.

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