Mary Wakefield, PhD, RN

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Center for Rural Health
Faculty Assembly November 25, 2008

• Mary Wakefield, PhD, RN
• Associate Dean for Rural Health and Director

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Connecting resources and knowledge to
strengthen the health of people in rural
communities.

• Rural Health Research
• Rural Health Policy
• Rural Health Workforce
• Native American Health
• Education, Training and Resource Awareness
• Community Development and Technical Assistance
• Evaluation

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Making a difference

• Current budget 7.6 million
• Over 45 faculty and staff
• 11 Faculty
• 37 programs and research projects underway to
  address a variety of rural health issues in North
  Dakota and across the United States.

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CRH Activity Tracking System
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What does the Center for Rural Health do?

• Address rural community issues.
• Leverage funding for essential rural efforts.
• Drive the nations rural policy agenda.
• Establish national leadership.
• Share valuable rural health information
  worldwide.
• Serve as a model for the nations health care.
• Lead efforts on rural health technology
• Improve conditions for rural hospitals.
• Establish American Indian research efforts.
• Improve decision making through information
  dissemination.
• Improve understanding through research.

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Leveraging funding for essential rural
efforts

• The Center provided 2.3 million in direct grant
  dollars over the last year to rural communities.
  

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Driving the rural policy agenda

• National Testimony
• U.S. House Subcommittee on Immigration,
  Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security and
  International Law in June 2008.
• U.S. Senate Budget Committee
• State Testimony

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Establishing national leadership

• National Organization of State Offices of Rural
  Health, President.
• Leadership in the National Rural Health
  Association
• National and regional boards, committees, task
  forces, and workgroups 71 entities

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Sharing rural health information

• U.S. administrators visit UND in December 2007 -
  fifth year anniversary of the Rural Assistance
  Center (RAC).
• 4.4 million to UND
• nine people on staff 
• an international online resource
  
  designed to meet rural health
  and human
  services information needs.  
• Over 2.5 million visits
• (one million last year)
• Over 5,000 specific information
• requests from people in all 50 states and over
  20 foreign countries
• Prompts Health Workforce information Center

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Serve as a model for the nations health care

• In May 2008, The Commonwealth Funds Commission
  on a High Performance Health System released a
  national report, The North Dakota Experience
  Achieving High-Performance Health Care Through
  Rural Innovation and
  Cooperation, that hails North Dakota as a
  model of quality health care for both rural
  and urban regions across the nation.

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Leading efforts on rural health technology

• The Center convenes and chairs the ND Health
  Information Technology Steering Committee.
• A committee of public and private stakeholders,
  working to facilitate the adoption of HIT.

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Improving conditions for rural hospitals

• The Medicare Rural Hospital Flexibility program
  (Flex) provided over 290,000 in grants to 18
  Critical Access Hospitals.
• The Flex program provided 226 technical
  assistance activities.
• The program created a new statewide quality
  improvement network comprised of 34 Critical
  Access Hospitals.
• The Small Hospital Improvement Program (SHIP)
  provided 247,000 in grants to 29 small rural
  hospitals.

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Establishing American Indian
health research efforts

• Coordinated the American Indian Health Research
  Conference
• a day-long event on campus for national speakers,
  researchers,
• students, and community members to learn
• How to do research with American Indian
  communities
• What research needs to be done
• How to partner with communities,
  tribal colleges,
  and researchers.

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Improving decision making through information
dissemination

• CRH Update, monthly e-newsletter 4,000
  subscribers
• Rural Health Research Alerts, occasional
  e-notices 1,000 subscribers
• Flex Updates, monthly e-newsletter 80
  subscribers
• Native Aging Visions, twice a year newsletter,
  3,500 subscribers
• The Rural Monitor, RACs quarterly national
  newsletter 5,800 subscribers.
• RAC Health Update, twice a month listserv, 4,500
  subscribers
• RAC Human Services Update, monthly listserv,
  3,800 subscribers

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Improving understanding through research

• Partners with the University of Minnesota in the
  Upper Midwest Rural Health Research Center
• Leads the national Rural Health Research Gateway
  project
• Building Research Infrastructure and Capacity
  (BRIC) project
• ND Nursing supply and demand

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For more information contact Center for
Rural HealthUniversity of North DakotaSchool of
Medicine and Health SciencesGrand Forks, ND
58202-9037
Tel
[phone] Fax [phone]


ruralhealth.und.edu