EMMETT, Idaho — New rural health funding is making its way to Emmett, where local health care leaders say the investment will help replace aging equipment, improve technology, and support access to care close to home.
The funding comes through Idaho's Rural Health Transformation Program. Statewide, 18 of Idaho's 26 critical access hospitals received funding through the program, including Valor Health.
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"Our main principles at Valor are providing exceptional care locally. That's really what drives us. And so I think that people will see with this investment just more focus on delivering that high-quality care and making the care available here locally as much as possible," said Valor Health CEO Brad Turpen.
The funding marks the next step in a process Idaho News 6 has been following since earlier this year, when rural hospitals across the state were applying for federal dollars intended to improve rural health care access and services.
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At Gem County Fire & EMS, Chief Michael Welch said the agency is seeing continued growth and increasing demand for service.
"The biggest thing is the growth, the increasing call volumes," Welch said. "It keeps going up steadily, and then just how we maintain it."
Gem County Fire & EMS received $969,738.60 through the program. According to Welch, the funding will be used to purchase a new ambulance and replace aging cardiac monitors used by crews in the field.
"The funding will address some of our most critical equipment and response needs by providing one brand new fully equipped ambulance featuring a hydraulic power cot and power load system," Welch said.
He added that the department will also receive eight new cardiac monitors, "providing our crew with the most modern state-of-the-art diagnosis technology to support patient assessment and emergency care."
In a separate interview with Idaho News 6, Welch said the department's current cardiac monitors are about 10 years old and have reached their life expectancy.
"This grant is huge for us," he said. "It was time to look into how we're going to replace that, and this grant helps us facilitate that."
Welch said the monitors could arrive in about three months, while a new ambulance is expected to take significantly longer.
"The cardiac monitors are a little bit quicker. They're looking at about three months out before we'll be able to receive those, and an ambulance, they are still about 18 to 24 months out for a build of a new ambulance," he said.
Valor Health received $5,476,912 through the program after applying for more than $7 million in grant funding.
"I think specifically to this program, the work that we did to prepare for this, so we submitted applications for over $7 million in grant funds to try to meet the objectives of this program to transform care in rural environments. We received about $5.5 million," Turpen said.
Turpen said about $4.6 million will go toward a new electronic health record system, while nearly $800,000 will support new imaging equipment, including a CT scanner.
Turpen said one of the biggest benefits of the new electronic health record system will be improved coordination with larger health systems.
"People often think that only the rural facilities take care of rural residents, but we have lots of partnerships with Saint Luke's and Saint Alphonsus, and they really help take care of people who need a higher level of care but live in a rural community," Turpen said. "And so being on the same electronic medical record as they're on is really going to help from a continuity of care standpoint."
The hospital's new CT scanner will replace equipment that Turpen said has become increasingly difficult to maintain.
"From an equipment standpoint, the CT machine that we have now is 19 years old. It often goes down and needs repair," Turpen said.
Turpen said those repairs can have real impacts on patient care.
"When it does go down, that means that we have to go on divert in our emergency department," Turpen said.
During Monday's event, Turpen said the scanner is used around the clock and plays a critical role in emergency care.
He said when the machine is unavailable, some patients must leave the community for care they would otherwise receive in Emmett.
"At times when that 19-year-old machine would need repairs, that would mean that EMS would have to take a community member to another facility 45 minutes over the hill to get the care that they could be getting here at Valor Health," he said.
Turpen said the funding arrives at a time when many rural hospitals continue to face significant challenges.
"We're highlighting Valor Health here today, but there are 1400 critical access hospitals across the nation. Providing healthcare in a rural environment is extremely challenging," Turpen said.
He also said opportunities like this help rural providers prepare for the future.
"We're facing reimbursement cuts in the future, and so these types of investment opportunities are really, really important for us," he said. "We're very grateful for the opportunity, and I know there are a lot of facilities across the country that feel the same way."
For both organizations, leaders said the goal is not only to replace equipment, but to strengthen local health care services for years to come.
"This investment will help us modernize our technology, strengthen our services, support our EMS partners, and continue building a sustainable health care system for Gem County and surrounding communities for years to come," Turpen said.
