News Release

HHS Awards $1.6 Million to Improve Health Care in Rural Alaska

HHS Deputy Secretary Alex Azar today announced two awards totaling $1.6 million that will provide financial assistance to organizations that improve the health care of people living in Alaska and Washington State. He made this announcement while visiting health care sites and tribal communities in Alaska.

An award of $1.5 million was made to the Alaska Frontier Extended Stay Consortium. The Consortium, a collaboration among five Alaska organizations and one Washington State organization, will examine the effectiveness and appropriateness of the Frontier Extended Stay Clinics (FESC) in providing health care services in remote locations in Alaska and the continental United States. Funds will pay for new staff, equipment and quality assurance programs to help address barriers to providing extended care services in isolated clinics.

�Clinics in Alaska and other remote, frontier areas of the country face unique and serious barriers to providing care for those Americans who need it most,� said Deputy Secretary Azar. �These funds will help those providers offer additional services and improve the resources currently available.�

Weather and distance often prevent severely injured or ill patients from obtaining immediate transport to an acute care hospital. Currently these individuals are held in FESCs until they can be transported or are no longer in need of transport.

Consortium members include the SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium (SEARHC), Sitka, AK; Cross Roads Medical Center, Glenallen, AK; Iliuliuk Family Medical Center, Unalaska, AK; the Native Village of Eyak, Cordova, AK, and Inter Island Medical Center, Friday Harbor, WA. A sixth consortium partner, the Alaska Center for Rural Health, Anchorage, AK; will provide evaluation services to the program.

An additional $100,000 contract was awarded to Mountain State Group, an Idaho-based non-profit health and human services organization, to provide financial and organizational performance improvement services to Alaska�s small rural hospitals. The project is based upon the successful Delta Rural Hospital Performance Improvement project that has brought improved financial stability to over 60 small rural hospitals in the Mississippi Delta region.

HHS� Health Resources and Services Administration and its Office of Rural Health Policy (http://ruralhealth.hrsa.gov/) administer the grant.