On March 3, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont announced that the state was receiving $154 million from the Rural Health Transformation Program federal grant to change rural healthcare within Connecticut, according to a press release.
“This investment allows us to tackle those challenges head-on — from expanding mental health services and building a stronger health care workforce to modernizing our technology infrastructure and connecting residents to the services they need,” Lamont said. “This is about making sure every corner of Connecticut has the opportunity to thrive.”
The grant is part of Section 71401 of what is known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” The bill appropriates about $10 billion per fiscal year for a program that supports the provision of health care in rural areas.
There are stipulations of the uses of the grant money according to the CMS Rural Health Transformation website being used for at least three of the ten potential allocations of the grant.
Some of the allocations can be, “[promoting] sustainable access to high quality rural health care services” or “promoting evidence-based, measurable interventions to improve prevention and chronic disease management.”
Mehul Dahal, the chief policy advisor at the Connecticut Department of Social Services, talked about the projects that the grant will go towards.
“One of the projects looking for approval is the expansion of a 23-hour health crisis line run by the Department of Mental Health and Addition Services,” Dahal said. “The grant is looking to set rural communities up for successproviding base line supports, updates to tech systems, renovations, including other infrastructure.”
All the projects are available to be viewed online, according to Dahal.
The grant’s definition of rural goes by the one provided by the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy, according to Dahal. There are 78 towns and cities within CT that are classified as rural, according to the Connecticut State Office of Rural Health.
Within these areas, only four areas — Plymouth, Cornwall, Warren and Bethany — have only basic health services with no first responder or paramedic services, according to the Rural Health in Connecticut’s June 2022 survey from DataHaven. All other areas have first responder services, paramedic services or both.
Dahal said that the Department of Social Services is looking to the future to see how these programs will perform.
“[The Department of Social Services is] looking to set up pilot programs to and look to see how effective these programs are… to then look for other sources of funding,” Dahal said.