NOSORH committees are great focal points for engaging in many NOSORH initiatives.  Descriptions of all committees and contact information can be found on the NOSORH website.

Executive Committee – The officers of NOSORH met last month to review the first draft on the 2019-2022 strategic plan and prepare for the February Board of Directors meeting. Graham Adams joined the Executive Committee for 2019 to fill the Past President role left vacant when Melissa Van Dyne left the State Office of Rural Health to join the Missouri Rural Health Association.

NOSORH Board – The Board of Directors met in February to review the first draft of a strategic plan for 2019-2022.  Three themes were identified by the Board at their planning meeting in January:  cultivating a vital, innovative rural health landscape and infrastructure, developing leadership for population health and health equity, and building capacity for data driven rural programs and decision making. The board also adopted a policy for investing any NOSORH reserve funds, use of social media, staff paternity/maternity leave and adoption benefit, and revised the procurement policies.

Communications- The Communications Committee reviewed the recommendations from Impact! Communications to help inform this year’s National Rural Health Day activities. The committee meeting scheduled for March 5 has been cancelled.

Development- The Development Committee began work on the sponsor prospectus for the coming year by revisiting a brief history of sponsorship and then focusing on where the organization would like to go. The group would like to ensure that sponsorships/partnerships go beyond the Annual Meeting, focusing on the NOSORH mission and the Power of Rural. The goal is to have a meaningful Rural Champion level of sponsorship within the next month and to have the Sponsor Prospectus ready for distribution in April.

Rural Health ClinicThe RHC Committee welcomed the Department of Justice – Elder Justice Initiative Administrator, Andy Mao, as a new partner. The Committee is excited to engage in this new partnership and to assist the Initiative with information dissemination to rural communities. In addition, the Committee continued work revising the RHC Education Modules 1 and 2. These modules should be ready for re-introduction by mid-summer. John Gale, from the Maine Rural Research Center, shared a new resource that examines the breakdown of cost per visit in Rural Health Clinics (RHCs). With the current discussion of RHC reimbursement levels, this information is timely.  If you have interest in joining the RHC/rural primary care discussion, please reach out to Committee Chairs, Crystal Barter or Tammy Norville.

Educational Exchange- The EE Committee met in February to review the outline of the Mentoring program and plans for completing additional topical proficiencies. In March, the committee will review an outline of the Mentoring program’s curriculum and provide insight to resources for the upcoming Proficiencies Benchmarking Report. The March meeting is set for March 18 at 3:00pm ET.

Policy Program Monitoring Team- The PPMT worked together with the Policy Committee last month to craft comments to CMS on Payment Parameters for Federally-facilitated Exchanges (FFEs) and State-based Exchanges on the Federal Platform (SBE–FPs), including recommendations on silver-loading issues, automatic participant re-enrollment, and user fees for federal marketplace participation. The group also discussed an upcoming EMS demonstration project.

Joint Committee on Rural Emergency Care – The JCREC was given an update on the Tactical plan, and they also discussed opportunities to expand sponsorship of the National Rural EMS & Care Conference in Charleston, SC this year.

 


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