The dashboard details and consolidates rural health data to help rural healthcare leaders and policymakers understand constituent demographics
Stroudwater Associates, the nation’s leading source for strategic, operational, financial, quality, and clinical strategy for rural and community healthcare, recently unveiled the State & Congressional District Profiles at the 2024 NRHA Policy Institute.
The Profiles, built in partnership with the National Rural Health Association (NRHA) and National Organization of State Offices of Rural Health (NOSORH), is an integrated data visualization dashboard sharing information about healthcare infrastructure, workforce, outcomes, and equity/social determinants of health within each state and congressional district.
The Profiles dashboard was inspired by a presentation by Alan Morgan, CEO of NRHA, at NRHA’s 2022 CAH Conference surrounding the impact of grassroots lobbying for rural healthcare.
“Grassroots lobbying holds immense power in influencing rural policy,” emphasized Carrie Cochran-McClain, DrPH, Chief Policy Officer of NRHA.” The profiles will help to provide critical baseline information on the status of healthcare access and health outcomes in rural communities.”
“Historically, policymakers crafted rural healthcare policies without a comprehensive understanding of its landscape,” added Jeff Sommer, MPP, Managing Partner of Stroudwater. “After months of collaboration with the NRHA and NOSORH, we have developed a tool to help policymakers understand the demographics of their constituents, enabling them to develop policies that positively impact rural healthcare.”
Although the dashboard was officially launched during the Policy Institute, Stroudwater will continue to add new metrics and capabilities to expand the impact and enhance the utility of the rural healthcare Profiles.
“By unveiling the tool at the Policy Institute, we were able to gather feedback on how to optimize the tool directly from its potential users,” explains Keith Bubblo, Senior Analyst of Stroudwater.
Although it was initially conceptualized and built to be used for grassroots lobbying, the team has looked to identify other groups that could benefit from the information the dashboard provides. After the Policy Institute, the team’s first step was to reach out to the State Offices of Rural Health to share the dashboard, with the hope that the dashboard would provide an extra level of support for the offices planning future grant and technical assistance programs, such as the Flex program for Critical Access Hospitals in their state.
“State Offices often receive legislative inquiries regarding access to care in their home districts. This easy-to-use tool will allow State Offices to readily answer these questions and provide an opportunity to visually explain data,” says Tonne McCoy, Technical Assistance Director of NOSORH.
“Before the tool, State Offices of Rural Health lacked access to comprehensive data and data visualizations specific to their state,” added Tammy Norville, CEO of NOSORH. “With this new tool, State Offices gain deeper insights into their state demographics, which will help them make more informed recommendations to positively impact rural healthcare.”
The State & Congressional District Profiles Dashboard is now available to the public through this link.