Programs & Events Overview
For more than thirty years, the National Rural Health Association has been serving rural communities by advancing and publicizing rural health issues and seeking to solve rural health care challenges. The NRHA is the only national organization with a clear mission to improve the delivery of health services in rural areas and the capacity, through its members and staff, to provide research, education, leadership, and informational support to help rural citizens build, maintain, and improve the institutions that can meet their health care needs.
The NRHA’s activities bring together residents of rural communities, rural health professionals of all specialties, representatives of state, local, and national governments, and the full range of private sector rural health organizations. Through workshops, conferences, technical assistance, and other outreach efforts, NRHA programs serve rural communities by providing relevant and timely information and best practices to all people who care about the health or rural America
Educational Conferences
Each year, the NRHA holds 7 educational conferences around the country specifically for those who work in rural and frontier health care. These conferences provide an opportunity for isolated rural professionals to join their colleagues for networking, practice-sharing, and information exchange. In addition, the NRHA conferences provide quality educational sessions developed specifically for rural and frontier health professionals to learn the latest evidence-based practices, techniques, and research.
Continuing Education
The continuing education needs of all rural health professionals differ in many ways from their peers in urban and suburban areas. The NRHA’s Educational Conferences provide continuing education credits for many rural health professional through accreditation by the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners, the National Commission for Health Education Credentialing, National Association of Social Workers (state chapters), American College of Healthcare Executives, and state nursing associations. If you are interested in obtaining continuing education credits for other professional organizations, please contact Meaghan McCamman at (202) 639 – 0550 or McCamman@NRHArural.org.
State Rural Health Associations
State Rural Health Associations (SRHAs) are critical partners with the National Rural Health Association in pursuing our mission “to improve the health and well-being of rural Americans and their communities through advocacy, communications, education and research.”
SRHAs exist in almost all states, residing either in state governments, universities or as non-profit organizations. Each SRHA works to help their individual rural communities build health care delivery systems through collecting and disseminating information, helping to coordinate rural health interests state-wide, and by supporting efforts to improve recruitment and retention of health professionals. SRHA’s fulfill the broad goals of increasing awareness of rural health issues in their states and providing networking and educational opportunities to their members.
The NRHA works closely with each SRHA, offering an Annual Skillbuilding workshop, an SRHA toolkit and constant technical assistance to each state.
Rural Medical Educators
Rural areas face widespread shortages of physicians, and medical education has traditionally not encouraged rural careers. The NRHA supports students, faculty and other practitioners committed to increasing the numbers of physicians practicing in rural areas through its Rural Medical Educators (RME) group and Annual Rural Medical Educators Conference.
Rural Health Students
The NRHA boast more than 200 student members with an interest in rural health, including innumerable college and medical school chapters. NRHA students work with the Rural Medical Educators to formulate models for improving the provision of rural-specific medical education. Student members are also active in the development and maintenance of a technical assistance toolkit for college chapters and medical schools, facilitating student involvement at the national level in rural health activities.
The NRHA works to actively educate students with an interest in rural health care. Scholarships are available for students and residents to attend NRHA conferences, and the NRHA has developed student-specific curricula at several annual events.
Emerging Issues in Rural Health
Each year, the NRHA conducts a search of rural health literature and consults with state and national leaders to identify a short list of the most pressing policy issues in rural health. With the help of the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy, the NRHA identifies and brings together a group of leading experts in the chosen fields to develop a series of in-depth policy recommendations for the federal government. Following the development of these recommendations, the NRHA disseminates this information and the findings of these important meetings through its annual educational conferences.
The Rural Health Fellows (RHF) program is a year-long, intensive program run by the NRHA that strives to develop leaders who can articulate a clear and compelling vision for rural America. Fellows will gain valuable insights and build critical skills in personal, team, and organizational leadership, health policy analysis and advocacy, and NRHA governance and structure. These ambitious learning and skill development objectives are accomplished through a combination experiential and action learning, exposure to premier faculty and seasoned practitioners, and reinforcement through executive coaching and structured team assignments.
Rural Minority and Multicultural Health
Disproportionate access to care, fragmented health care systems, lack of cultural sensitivity among providers, and cultural beliefs and behaviors are key determinants of racial/ethnic disparities in health care and health status. The NRHA works with its members toward the elimination of health disparities and to improve access to quality health care services for rural minority and multicultural populations through educational and networking opportunities and community-based programs.
Border Health Initiative
The NRHA has a new program with a special emphasis on ensuring quality health care services for rural Hispanic populations along the United States border. The Border Health Initiative is a new partnership between the NRHA, the Migrant Clinicians Network, and the University of Texas Pan American Border Health Office, which will identify important border health issues and develop meetings, conferences, training materials, publications, and technical assistance and expertise to provide rural health professionals information on quality, access to primary health care and safety net providers.
Quality Initiative: Quality Through Collaboration
The NRHA Rural Quality Initiative seeks to promote access to coordinated, high-quality care in every rural community. It’s a five-year plan designed to advance the goals of a November, 2004 Institute of Medicine (IOM) report called "Quality Through Collaboration: The Future of Rural Health." The NRHA Quality Initiative was designed with the belief that rural health care providers can not only achieve high performance standards, but can be leaders in the national quality movement. As such, the NRHA offers an Annual Quality and Clinical Conference, to keep providers updated on emerging information and research in the rural quality movement, and recently published a manual entitled “What Makes Rural Healthcare Work.”
For additional information, please contact Meaghan McCamman at: mccamman@NRHArural.org
