Governor Jared Polis and the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy & Financing announced $169,587,181 in Rural Health Transformation Program grants to rural healthcare providers across Colorado, with a dozen southeast Colorado organizations among the recipients.

Funded by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the grants will support access to care and improved health outcomes in rural and frontier communities. The department received 112 eligible applications requesting more than $250 million for 368 projects. Through a structured, multi-step review process, 91 applicants and approximately 250 projects were selected across 52 rural or frontier counties and 3 rural census tract counties.

Southeast Colorado awardees and their grant amounts are:

Keefe Memorial Health Service District dba Keefe Memorial Hospital - $4,087,098 Arkansas Valley Regional Medical Center - $3,564,484 Board of Trustees of Lincoln Community Hospital d/b/a Lincoln Health - $3,375,541 Kit Carson County Health Service District - $2,733,655 High Plains Community Health Center, Incorporated - $2,114,713 Cheyenne County dba Plains to Peaks RETAC - $1,938,921 Kiowa County Hospital District dba Weisbrod Health - $1,470,288 Eastern Plains Healthcare Consortium - $1,420,182 Epifluence LLC - Eastern Plains - $1,230,739 Prowers County Hospital District d/b/a Prowers Medical Center - $776,458 Walsh Hospital District - $488,364 Southeast Colorado Hospital District - $237,015

Funded projects span a wide range of priorities, including telehealth expansion and specialty care access, rural health workforce recruitment and retention, emergency medical services training and equipment, mobile and community-based health services, behavioral health and substance use disorder care, maternal and pediatric care, whole-blood supply networks reaching 39 Colorado counties, electronic health record modernization, and regional partnerships allowing rural hospitals and community organizations to share workforce and technology resources.