Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota Rural Health Grant Program

To assist North Dakota Rural Health communities in addressing three areas of concern:

• Improving access to care
  
• Providing cost effective health care
  
• Improving quality of care

Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota created a grants program and plans to award $350,000 annually to recipients propose projects that address the essential concepts of innovation, alignment and collaboration within any or all of the three areas of concern. The UND Center for Rural Health serves as administrator of the grant program for BCBSND.

Just as the Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota Board of Directors had expected, in its first round of grants, the people of rural North Dakota proposed some new ideas about how to improve the delivery of health care services in their communities.

The 2001 grant recipients included:

• Good Samaritan Hospital Association in Rugby, which was awarded just over $32,000 to fund an initiative to integrate emergency medical training into the high school curriculums of seven area school districts. The program will provide high school juniors and seniors with vocational education leading to an Emergency Medical Technician license, encouraging students to consider a career in health care and providing a new base of volunteers for local ambulance units.
• Lake Region State College in Devils Lake is taking the lead in addressing nursing workforce shortages in rural North Dakota. The college will use its $91,468 grant to develop and implement a LPN Distance Learning Program. It will work with partners--Bismarck State College, Williston State College, and health care provider consortias in Langdon, Grafton, Park River and Devils Lake--to develop Internet courses, video conferencing, field and technical support services and much more to make the program a success. This creative model focuses on access to services and quality of care factors by linking academic and rural health institutions.
• Jamestown Hospital with its partners Dakota Clinic and MedCenter One Clinic were awarded $66,500 to develop a program that allows pharmacists to enter into collaborative practices with physicians to assist in the management of disease. North Dakota recently enacted legislation that allows such arrangements. This innovative initiative is expected to decrease health care dollars spent on disease management, decrease adverse medication events for patients, and improve patient outcomes.
• A cooperative effort of rural hospitals in eastern North Dakota, extending from Hillsboro to Langdon has been awarded $29,000 to fund a program increasing nursing hours devoted to outpatient diabetes education, implement a diabetes data tracking system, develop an indigent medication program, and establish community based health care networks. The group is known as the Valley Rural Health Cooperative Diabetes Education Program (VRHC). Towns included in the VRHC are Grafton, Pembina, Cavalier, Langdon, Park River, Cooperstown, Northwood, Mayville, and Hillsboro.
• The Cooperstown Medical Center along with its collaborating partners Union Hospital, Mayville and Hillsboro Medical Center, Hillsboro, will receive $43,602. The grant will be used to develop emergency medical services, community health education and health promotion and wellness programs. The service area covers 25 rural North Dakota communities in Griggs, Steele, and Trail Counties. Among other things, the three rural hospitals will work together to provide automatic defibrillators to each county law enforcement department.
• Finley Ambulance Service with its partners Hope Ambulance Service, the Steele County sheriff, county public health officer and Union Hospital will use the $4,500 grant they were awarded to embark on a multifaceted process. The goal is to link Emergency Medical Services training throughout the county, build cooperation between rural ambulance units, promote 911 efforts and purchase automatic external defibrillators.
• A group of churches in Tower City and Buffalo will use its $5,235 grant in combination with other grants totaling nearly $20,000 to implement a parish nurse program. The program is designed to address crisis intervention for patients and families, provide follow up medical care and community health education. The churches involved in the program are the Buffalo Lutheran Church, St. Thomas Catholic Church, also in Buffalo, and the St. Paul Lutheran Church in Tower City.
• A broad-based community group in Richardton known as the Richardton Committee to Keep Health Care Services, will receive $3,105 to fund CPR training and the purchase of an external defibrillator. The community group is composed of concerned citizens, including representation from the five community health care facilities (hospital, clinic, dental clinic, ambulance service and pharmacy).
• With a $50,000 rural health grant and grant dollars from other sources, a tele-pharmacy program will be developed in north central North Dakota.The program will connect a pharmacist and a pharmacy technician in the rural communities of Maddock and Rolette. Once developed, this is a program that could be duplicated throughout rural North Dakota.

Reacting to the quality of the programs to be funded, BCBSND President Michael Unhjem said, "This is consistent with our philosophy that solutions to the health care delivery problems of rural North Dakota may be best found within local communities themselves. With some financial support from us, we hope to advance their ideas into action on behalf of our members."

The 2002 grant applications are currently under consideration.

Funding for Life Support is provided by a grant from USDA Rural Development