In 2025, the Trump Administration created the Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP) to measurably improve patient health outcomes in rural communities through advances in digital health, telemedicine, and health innovation, among other projects. States will receive a share of $50 billion over five years to transform existing rural health care infrastructure and build sustainable healthcare systems that improve patient outcomes.

On June 3, the Connected Health Initiative (CHI) hosted an event called Supercharging Rural Health with Digital Innovation that explored the opportunities and challenges of how digital transformation can measurably impact health in rural communities.

Rural-First Design and Outcome-Focused Objectives

Keynote speaker Dr. Mehmet Oz, Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), began by highlighting how the RHTP initiative can reshape the future of rural healthcare by funding programs that address the challenges of delivering healthcare to rural parts of the country. Rather than retrofitting urban solutions to rural communities, CMS aims to provide effective care to rural communities through a proactive and interactive approach that is designed with rural communities in mind. Dr. Oz noted that CMS is focused on analyzing post-implementation data to ensure that RHTP programs produce actionable results. CMS also discussed the importance of states’ sharing information and educating other states on which processes are working well.

Dr. Oz highlighted a few notable state proposals including:

  • Alaska using drones for medication delivery and developing rural maternal care,
  • The lower region of Alabama employing early detection capabilities for improving maternal health outcomes, and
  • Louisiana providing cellphones to patients with at-risk conditions so that they can quickly and frequently reach healthcare providers.

Dr. Oz highlighted the incorporation of thoughtful and human-focused uses of AI as a key goal of CMS. We need to see the lifesaving benefits that can come from the implementation of AI technologies as seen through wearables and better access to data.

Following Dr. Oz’s remarks, CMS Deputy Director for the Office of Rural Health Transformation Kate Sapra focused on the technology landscape across the states. This includes a key focus of CMS: incorporating rural community data in AI training. States are improving their technology landscapes in unique ways:

  • Arizona is placing telehealth kiosks strategically in community spaces like libraries and tribal leadership offices,
  • Iowa is incorporating dental kiosks in schools, and
  • Michigan is developing a telehealth mobile app with clear design for senior users.

Many of these improvements will find additional funding through the Rural Health Tech Catalyst Fund, which allocates grants to states for building tech solutions to address chronic disease management in rural areas.

Observations on Transforming Rural Healthcare

The event continued with a panel of experts digging in to key ways health technology can improve outcomes. Panelists discussed how the growing provider shortage impacts rural communities, and how fragmented electronic health record systems (EHRs) with disconnected patient data create a functional “tax” on clinicians’ limited time. However, panelists celebrated technological improvements that have already increased clinicians’ efficiency and reduced burnout rates. For example, ambient note-taking tools reduce clinicians’ charting time and clinics that switched from paper records to EHRs reduced referral backlogs by 60 percent. Looking forward, Dr. Christina Yarrington of the University of New Mexico expressed excitement that health monitoring tools could reduce providers’ workloads, diagnose chronic diseases like diabetes and hypertension earlier, and enable providers to look at health trends across a population.

The panel additionally addressed the importance of workforce education as a crucial step in effectively deploying technological solutions. Kimberley Williams, director of U.S. State and Local Government and Education Verticals and Strategic Engagement at Amazon Web Services, referenced a CMS report where 90 percent of states identified workforce education as a challenge to effectively deploying technological healthcare solutions. She noted that simply purchasing a system does not mean it was successfully deployed. Instead, administrators should ensure that clinicians are trained on new systems, otherwise they go unused.

Panelists were generally hopeful that insights substantiated by RHTP program metrics could empower states to make changes to overcome the unique barriers rural programs have accessing healthcare. Dr. Lucienne Ide, chief medical officer at Health Recovery Solutions, highlighted data showing remote patient monitoring has already empowered change when decisionmakers authorized Medicaid funds to pay for remote monitoring.  She was hopeful more states would follow suit. While the panelists agreed about the importance of focusing on measurable patient health outcomes, they raised concerns about the quick benchmark requirements. If states cannot change their practices fast enough and gather the necessary data, they may fail to meet outcome-based results.

Looking Forward

Many of CHI’s goals overlap with the discussions from the event’s speakers, such as supporting rural health innovations to promote preventative care and address root causes of diseases, encouraging sustainable access, strengthening recruitment and retention of health care providers, increasing the use of innovative technologies to improve health outcomes through efficient care delivery, data security, and access to digital health tools.

CHI provided attendees with a comprehensive list of Recommended Measures for States’ Rural Health Transformation Program Grants. CHI will continue to facilitate conversations around how to use new digital technologies in effective, innovative, safe, and beneficial ways to drive forward improvements in rural healthcare.