Deadline: 4-Jun-21
Applications are now open for the Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) Rural Maternity and Obstetrics Management Strategies (RMOMS) program.
The purpose of the RMOMS program is to improve access to and continuity of maternal and obstetrics care in rural communities.
Goals
The goals of the RMOMS program are to:
- improve maternal and neonatal outcomes within a rural region;
- develop a sustainable network approach to increase the delivery and access of preconception, pregnancy, labor and delivery, and postpartum services;
- develop a safe delivery environment with the support and access to specialty care for perinatal women and infants; and
- develop sustainable financing models for the provision of maternal and obstetrics care in rural hospitals and communities.
Focus Areas
This program intends to demonstrate the impact on access to and continuity of maternal and obstetrics care in rural communities through testing models that address the following RMOMS Focus Areas:
- Rural Regional Approaches to Risk Appropriate Care
- Demonstrate how a regional network with several rural hospitals that are facing challenges in providing obstetric services could aggregate obstetric services to a targeted rural hospital or Critical Access Hospital (CAH) within the rural region to revive or sustain obstetric and maternity care services. For example, volume may be too low at an individual rural hospital or CAH in the network; however, if deliveries were aggregated at one of the hospitals the financial viability of rural obstetric services in the rural region could be increased.
- Show how the network will ensure pregnant women in the rural region receive care in a facility that best meets their needs and those of their neonates. Address how regions can coordinate care to prioritize attention to referral to an appropriate facility during pregnancy, rather than emergent transfer during labor.
- Address how regional risk appropriate care will improve health equity.
- Network Approach to Coordinating a Continuum of Care
- Demonstrate how the participating rural hospitals, community health centers, and other network partners focus on improving access along the continuum of care for preconception, pregnancy, labor and delivery, and postpartum health services.
- Identify and implement strategies to improve maternal and neonatal outcomes by developing more formal case management that includes rural hospitals and clinics working closely with existing HRSA award recipients, such as Community Health Centers, Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) and Healthy Start programs
- Leveraging Telehealth and Specialty Care
- Show how rural networks collaborate with upstream tertiary providers (Level III and Level IV facilities) to enhance case management of higher-risk expectant mothers living in geographically isolated areas.
- Illustrate how telehealth platforms can support rural clinicians and the obstetric patients they serve.
- Financial Sustainability
- Show how rural networks, in partnership with Medicaid and other payers, can demonstrate improved outcomes and potential savings with the goal of providing the resources to ensure the ongoing support of the network once federal funding ceases.
Funding Information
- HRSA estimates approximately $3,000,000 to be available annually to fund up to 3 recipients.
- You may apply for a ceiling amount of up to $1,000,000 total cost (includes both direct and indirect, facilities and administrative costs) per year.
- The period of performance is September 1, 2021 through August 31, 2025 (four years).
Eligibility Criteria
- Eligible applicants shall be domestic public or private, non-profit or for-profit, entities, including faith-based and community-based organizations, tribes, and tribal organizations.
- The applicant organization may be located in an urban or rural area but must have demonstrated experience serving, or the capacity to serve, rural underserved populations.
- However, all activities supported by this program must exclusively target populations residing in HRSA-designated rural counties or rural census tracts in urban counties.
- Applicants should list the rural areas (counties) that will be served.
- Proposed counties should be fully rural, but if counties are partially rural counties, please include the rural census tract(s) in the Project Abstract.
- The applicant organization should also describe their experience and/or capacity serving rural populations in the Project Abstract section of the application.
- It is important that applicants list the rural counties (or rural census tract(s) if the county is partially rural) that will be served through their proposed project, as this will be one of the factors that will determine the applicant organization’s eligibility to apply for this funding.
For more information, visit https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=329770
