HHS Awards Grant to Improve Rural Health Care in Wisconsin
Effort Promotes Partnerships Between Tribal, Non-Tribal Health Care Providers

HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson today announced a $25,000 grant to the Jackson County Community Health Network Inc. in Black River Falls, Wis., to study ways rural Tribal and non-Tribal health care organizations can cooperate to improve health delivery.

“Tribes in Wisconsin and elsewhere have begun forming partnerships with neighboring groups to improve health care delivery in rural areas,” Secretary Thompson said.  “Grants like this will speed that process – and speed the delivery of quality health care to Tribal members and other rural residents.”

In Wisconsin, partnerships between Tribes and non-Tribal entities have been supported by grants from the HHS’ Office of Rural Health Policy, private entities such as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine.  The partnerships emerged in response to persistent gaps in rural health care delivery even as different governmental and private programs sought to increase health care capacity in rural areas. 

Today’s grant to the Network will be used to examine and describe partnerships between Tribal and Non-Tribal health resources throughout rural Wisconsin.  The Network will identify barriers to partnerships and considers which processes and approaches would best overcome existing obstacles.  The grant supplements earlier efforts launched by the Ho-Chunk Nation Department of Health to improve the delivery of rural health care in the Jackson County area.

The Network was created as a result of an $86,614 grant awarded by HHS last year to the Ho-Chunk Nation.  Under that grant, the Tribe organized a partnership that included several Jackson County agencies, hospitals and schools to assess the health care needs of local residents.  Members of the Network then developed a plan to improve communication among local health care providers, strengthen the relationship between rural schools and public health, and coordinate services among agencies.  In fiscal year 2001, the Network received an HHS rural health grant of $197,938 to implement the plan.

In July, Secretary Thompson created an HHS Rural Task Force to conduct a department-wide examination of how HHS programs can be strengthened to better serve rural communities.  The task force will look at ways to remove obstacles that interfere with access to health care and other services for people who live in rural areas.

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