8:00am – 8:10am
Chairperson’s Opening Remarks 

8:10am – 8:50am
Rural Healthcare Transformation: New Models for Sustainability
The rural healthcare landscape demands innovative approaches to ensure long-term viability. This session will examine an emerging model for rural healthcare delivery on Maryland’s rural Eastern Shore. This approach integrates both independent hospital strategies and regional partnerships; as well as reimagining business models withing Maryland’s unique Total Cost of Care hospital payment model, while maintaining local governance and community focus. Discover approaches for evaluating strategic options and implementing transformative change.

Lara D. Wilson, MHA
Director, Rural Health Care Transformation
UM Shore Medical Center Chestertown

University of Maryland Medical System

8:50am – 9:30am
The Network Niche: Healthcare’s Collaborative Advantage
The collaborative advantage provided by health networks is aiding rural facilities and communities across the country. The constantly changing and ever demanding healthcare environment requires healthcare organizations to be forward thinking, flexible, talented and tenacious. Add in trusted relationships, along with a collaborative mindset and spirit, health networks excel at improving access to care and helping rural providers maintain their independence.

Linda Weiss
Executive Director
National Cooperative of Health Networks Association, Inc.

9:30am – 10:00am
Networking Break 

10:00am – 10:40am
Improve Patient Safety Management Systems for Rural Health & Embrace Just Culture to Transform Care
Persistent patient safety risks like falls and medication errors continue to plague rural healthcare settings, despite countless improvement efforts. When some interventions show promise at first, it’s difficult to sustain improvements over time. Why? Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets. Too often, well-intentioned fixes to improve patient safety issues fail because they don’t address system-level weaknesses, worsened by a hierarchical culture that opts for a punitive response to medical errors. This presentation provides an overview of how rural health leaders can improve their patient safety management systems and culture of safety.

Shannon Davila, MSN, RN, CPPS, CPHQ, CIC, FAPIC
Executive Director, Total Systems Safety
Veteran of the United States Air Force
ECRI

10:40am – 11:20am
Strategic Partnerships: Addressing Health Needs in Rural Communities
Many rural hospitals are leveraging innovative strategic partnerships to have the greatest impact on community health. Through real-world examples, discover how Augusta Health is collaborating with non-profits and other local partners to address the priority needs identified in the Community Health Needs Assessment and improve health outcomes through trust-building, shared resources, and collective expertise.

Krystal D. Moyers, M.Ed., CHES
Administrative Director
Community Partnerships and Communications
Augusta Health 

11:20am – 12:00pm
Meeting the Needs of Rural Patients Discharged from Acute Care and Reducing Readmissions
Patients discharged to rural settings from acute care hospitals often cannot receive the usual post-acute services. Home Health and DME companies will not travel far to provide services, and this leads to frequent readmissions for those patients with chronic illnesses. To meet the needs of these patients, our acute care hospital developed partnerships with County Public Health and CalFire to provide services in the backcountry. Using both county funds and grants a RN/EMT team traveled to patients homes to provide patient education and resources to reduce readmissions, eliminate food insecurity, and provide fire protection. Past its pilot year, the program continues with acute hospital and grant support.

Rose M. Turner
Director, Integrated Care Management
Sharp Grossmont Hospital  

12:00pm – 12:40pm
Rural Health System Without Walls – How an Independent CAH Network is Turning Weakness into Strength
This session will explore how the Eastern Plains Healthcare Consortium (EPHC)—a network of independent Critical Access Hospitals in Colorado — has reimagined collaboration through a “system without walls” approach. By pooling resources and leveraging collective leadership, EPHC has built a shared IT & Security workforce that supports cybersecurity, digital infrastructure, data aggregation & analytics, and technical capacity across member hospitals—eliminating redundancy and strengthening resiliency.

Attendees will leave with practical models for cross-organization collaboration, lessons on workforce sharing in rural environments, and a renewed perspective on what’s possible when small hospitals stand together.

Zachary D’Argonne
Chief Executive Officer
Eastern Plains Healthcare Consortium 

12:40pm – 1:40pm
Networking Lunch

1:40pm – 2:20pm
Rural Healthcare Analytics: Converting Data into Strategic Insights
Data analytics drives strategic decision-making and operational improvement. Learn how rural providers are:

• Building analytics capabilities cost-effectively
• Using predictive modeling for service line planning
• Leveraging data for quality improvement
• Measuring community health impact
• Demonstrating value to partners and payers

Karen L. Fortuna, PhD, LICSW
Assistant Professor of Community and Family Medicine
Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth 

2:20pm – 3:20pm
Panel                  

3:20pm- 3:50pm
Networking Break

3:50pm – 4:30pm
Service Line Optimization: Making Strategic Choices
Explore how a community-based organization has successfully navigated service line optimization in a rural environment, offering valuable insights for hospitals seeking to improve efficiency and patient access. This session delves into practical frameworks for evaluating services, identifying growth opportunities, and making strategic decisions about service opportunities. Gain insights into real-world examples, key performance indicators, and partnership strategies that enhance service capabilities while preserving our local presence.

Kristina Devan, MHL
Director of Operations
Dignity Health Connected Living 

4:30pm – 5:10pm
Implementing and Growing a Rural Subspecialty Program Network – The Vanderbilt Pediatric Experience 2014-2024
As part of a broader effort to start pediatric multispecialty clinics across Tennessee (catchment area of 5 million patients), Vanderbilt identified pediatric cardiology as an anchor subspecialty for six multispecialty clinics that were opened over a five-year span (2014-2019).  This required new approaches to care delivery away from the main academic medical center in smaller, stand-alone locations.  With a defined approach that focused on patient need, the program was able to double the volume of pediatric cardiology patients seen across the system (10,500 visits to 21,000 visits) within ten years (2014-2024), a span that included the COVID-19 experience.  We will discuss our blueprint for success, which is translatable to any healthcare system willing to learn from our achievements as well as benefit from avoiding the times we erred.

Tim Thomas, MD, MMHC
Associate Professor
Division of Pediatric Cardiology
Vanderbilt University Medical Center 

5:10pm
End of Day One

8:00am – 8:15am
Chairperson’s Recap 

8:15am – 9:00am
Rural Hospital Board Governance: Leading Through Transformation
As rural healthcare evolves, effective board governance becomes increasingly critical. This session will explore strategies for building high-performing boards equipped to navigate industry transformation. Learn approaches for strengthening board composition, improving decision-making processes and fostering productive board-management relationships in rural settings.

Tracy Warner
Executive Director
Illinois Critical Access Hospital Network 

9:00am – 9:45am
Emergency Services and Critical Access Models
Emergency care remains fundamental to rural healthcare delivery. This session will showcase innovative approaches to emergency service delivery including hub-and-spoke models, tele-emergency programs and community paramedicine initiatives. Leaders share strategies for maintaining 24/7 coverage, managing transfers and leveraging technology to enhance emergency care capabilities.

Jacquelyn E. Alvarado, DNP, APRN, CNM, C-EFM
Director, Rural Maternal Health
A&M Rural and Community Health Institute | Texas A&M Health Sciences  

9:45am – 10:15am
Networking Break 

10:15am – 11:00am
Model for Management of Community and Congruent perinatal mental health in rural Georgia. (MoM Care GA)
The second leading cause of maternal mortality in Georgia is mental health related causes. This study addresses maternal mental health as a key factor in reducing maternal mortality and morbidity for rural women in West Georgia. The research incorporated expertise from community mental health nursing (university partner), mobile reproductive health (community org partner), nurse-entrepreneur (health tech partner), and with rural OB/Gyn (medical partner). The community-informed program features evidenced based interventions developed by women and implemented for rural and low-income women. The project utilized a mobile application (Wolomi) to deploy psycho-somatic intervention, Community Resiliency Model (CRM), and provide mental health support and anticipatory guidance through pregnancy and postpartum. The presentation will discuss data from pregnant women which assess mental health, social needs risk, and how the intervention may impact mental, physical, and social factors during pregnancy and postpartum. Linking pregnant and postpartum women in rural Georgia to resources and services such as CRM resilience-/trauma informed wellness skills and resources, peer to peer connection – Mama Companion™, and community congruent services may be crucial to alleviating perinatal stress and chronic diseases.

Rebecca Shasanmi Ellis, PhD, MPH, RN
Assistant Professor
Undergraduate & Masters Entry Programs
Georgetown University School of Nursing

11:00am – 11:45am
Growing Rural Healthcare: Building the Talent Pipeline with HOSA-FHP
Rural communities face unique challenges in healthcare workforce development. MN HOSA-Future Health Professionals is addressing these challenges through strategic partnerships with rural healthcare organizations, the establishment of HOSA chapters in rural schools, and an innovative CARE Career Adventures program for elementary students. This session will explore how these initiatives work together to spark interest in healthcare careers early to ultimately strengthen the rural healthcare talent pipeline. Attendees will gain insights into replicable strategies that can support workforce development in their own communities.

Summer Hagy
MN HOSA State Advisor/Executive Director
HOSA, Inc Board – Central Region State Advisor
Minnesota Board of Nursing – Public Member
Winona State University 

11:45am – 12:30pm
Two Rural Innovation Programs: Try These at Home
At the Oklahoma State University Center for Health Systems Innovation (CHSI), we have developed several initiatives aimed at driving rural healthcare transformation. Among them, two programs have stood out for their widespread engagement and significant impact: the OSU CHSI Rural Health Innovation Challenge (healthcare model innovation) and the OSU CHSI Innovation Review Initiative (technology innovation). Discover how we reimagined the healthcare hackathon model to effectively involve rural community leaders, turning small investments into meaningful systemic changes. Also, learn how we connect early-stage tech developers with rural healthcare providers, amplifying rural voices in the tech development process and identifying the solutions rural providers are interested in adopting.

Marjorie Erdmann, PhD
Director
Oklahoma State University Center for Health Systems Innovation 

12:30pm
Conference Concludes

Learning Objectives:

• Identify key market trends that will shape rural healthcare delivery over the next decade.
• Understand strategic approaches for adapting to emerging payment and delivery models.
• Learn frameworks for evaluating partnership opportunities in a consolidating market.
• Develop strategies for maintaining community-centered care while embracing innovation.

Kathleen Cahill, MBA, MSF
Associate Principal
Health Management Associates