The Health Resources and Services Administration's (HRSA) Federal Office of Rural Health Policy (FORHP) has released a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for the Rural Maternity and Obstetrics Management Strategies (RMOMS) Program.
You can review the funding opportunity at: www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=329770
Three RMOMS award recipients will each receive up to $1 million annually for a four-year period of performance to improve maternal obstetrics care in rural communities.
Award recipients will dedicate the first year to planning and the second through fourth years to activities that implement the program's focus areas, including:
- risk appropriate care approaches in rural regions,
- continuum of care through network approaches,
- telehealth and specialty care, and
- financial sustainability.
The program will allow awardees to test models in order to address unmet needs for their target population, which could include populations who have historically suffered from poorer health outcomes, health disparities and other inequities.
Applicants are required to describe the population they propose to serve has historically suffered from poorer health outcomes, health disparities, and other inequities and, also, provide demographic information around race/ethnicity. Applicants also have to compare their local, state and national data by racial and ethnic groups and discuss those disparities in the target population.
All domestic public and private entities, nonprofit and for-profit, are eligible to apply and successful organization must provide all services in HRSA-designated rural areas (as defined by the Rural Health Grants Eligibility Analyzer). For the purposes of this program, the applicant must have a network composition that includes:
- at least two rural hospitals or Critical Access Hospitals (CAH);
- at least one Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) or FQHC look-alike;
- at least one Level III and/or Level IV facility (as defined by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists);
- regionally and/or locally available social services in the continuum of care (i.e., state Home Visiting and Healthy Start Programs); and
- the state Medicaid agency.
The applicant organization must be part of an established network that includes at least three separately owned entities, at least one of which must be located in a HRSA-designated rural area.
Please visit Grants.gov to review the RMOMS NOFO and apply. The due date for application submission is June 4, 2021.
HRSA will hold a webinar on April 22, 2021 at 2:00 P.M. ET and make a recording available for those who cannot attend. Please reference page ii in the NOFO for the webinar dial-in and playback information.
For more information about RMOMS, please contact Federal Office of Rural Health Policy. Learn more about how HRSA is addressing rural and maternal health care.