Healthy Rural Oregon Celebrates One Year!

The Oregon Office of Rural Health (ORH) and CLHO recently concluded the first year of a three-year award from HRSA’s Rural Public Health Workforce Training Network grant. The funded project, called the Healthy Rural Oregon (HRO) program, aims to grow the public health and healthcare workforce in rural Oregon by training, engaging, and supporting the employment of community health workers (CHWs) and community EMT/paramedics (CPs) in both core and supplemental skill sets that meet rural communities’ needs.

Since the start of the HRO project in August 2022, it has made great strides toward meeting grant objectives and developing a stronger landscape for long-term, sustainable growth. The following are HRO’s accomplishments to date:

• Engaged 48 partner organizations, including public health agencies, health care providers, community-based organizations, and professional associations.
• Supported 29 students to enroll in and complete state-certified programs to become new CHWs. HRO will continue training new CHWs at a similar pace over the next two years in response to the high demand for core CHW training from network partners.
• Supported 41 certified CHWs to complete cross-training or continuing education units, informed by employer and community needs (such as medical assistant training, health care interpretation, birth doula training, postpartum support, social drivers of health, and mental health first aid). HRO has also partnered with existing training programs to be offered in rural areas of need. These trainings include mental health first aid, diabetes education for non-clinicians, and an end-of-life doula certification.
• Focused on building a new Community EMT program at Treasure Valley Community College in Malheur County. This program was designed in collaboration with the Malheur County Ambulance Service District and Malheur County Public Health Department and first rolled out in June 2023 with five students. Students are now certified and practicing EMTs.

In year 2, HRO plans to offer new cross-training and continuing education for CHWs, including a peer support specialist training program with Klamath Basin Behavioral Health and six new continuing education modules (three in English and three in Spanish) at Central Oregon Community College, designed as open-access, online educational resources and provided free of charge.

HRO will also develop a Community Paramedicine (CP) program in Malheur County. This program aims to enroll students not currently practicing as EMTs or Paramedics and will include CP principles in their base paramedicine curriculum. Through this format, the program hopes to address a significant shortage of EMTs and Paramedics practicing in the region while equipping them with the community health principles and skills incorporated into CP programming.

Find more information about the Healthy Rural Oregon program here. You can also contact the Grant Project and Data Manager, Madison Riethman, or the grant’s Workforce Navigator, Janessa Wells.

This update first appeared in the ORH September Newsletter. Subscribe to ORH’s Newsletter here.