Your local hospital could get a big influx of cash. Wyoming doled out $205 million federal dollars to improve rural health care in every county.
Almost half, 44.8%, of Wyoming’s federal Rural Health Transformation Act money this year could improve access to emergency care. That’ll go toward hospitals and first responders in relatively isolated places.
‘The chain of survival’
The goal is to shore up the basics, like labor and delivery, and trauma services. Plus, this could make it so hospitals don’t need a huge volume of patients to keep their doors open.
The Memorial Hospital of Carbon County is getting about $5.7 million, partly for emergency response. CEO Kerry Ashment said these services are often the “first link in the chain of survival.”
“In rural Wyoming, where distances are significant, and Carbon County covers 8,000 square miles, and weather conditions can be challenging, timely emergency response can make the difference between life and death,” Ashment said in a Oct. 23 press conference.
Otherwise, almost a third of funding, 27.5%, is going toward improving Wyoming’s rural workforce, from nurses to therapists. The next largest portion, 18.8%, could help “Make Wyoming Healthy Again.” That means investments in primary care, diet and exercise. The next chunk, 8.3%, will fund health technology upgrades.
‘Getting bold’ on maternal health
State officials say maternal healthcare, in particular, is getting a boost. It’s an issue researchers, providers and public officials are trying to find solutions for across the state.
About half of the counties in the state don't have an OB-GYN, according to a 2024 state health departmentreport. Additionally, at leastnine counties don’t have basic labor and delivery units. Several closed in recent years due to the high costs that come with a low number of patients.
Stefan Johansson, Wyoming Department of Health director, said the money could help re-open labor and delivery units, and keep existing ones open, at critical access hospitals.
“If you sustain this service or if you bring it back online, there's a payment each year of this program to help sustain and transform that exact care,” Johansson said at the press conference.
For the Memorial Hospital of Converse County, which got more than $5 million, just knowing investments were in the pipeline allowed leadership to get more “bold” on maternal care, said CEO Matt Dammeyer.
“Knowing that there was gonna be help coming allowed us to be very aggressive, to innovate, to try some things, from a staffing standpoint, from a recruitment standpoint, that we simply would not have had the confidence to go out and do,” Dammeyer said at the press conference.
He clarified over email that this meant switching to a more dynamic staffing model. The Douglas hospital used to rely on a more static model, with two nurses each shift.
“This is very inefficient, since to a large degree, babies come when they want to come, including in the middle of the night. This leads to having too much staff most of the time and too little at other times,” Dammeyer explained over email.
The more dynamic model allowed the hospital to let nurses leave during low periods and add more when there are a lot of births. Dammeyer said this model is more expensive, but it helped allow the hospital to double its patient volume from an average of 121 a year to 243 last year.
They did this knowing the rural health dollars could act as a “cushion.”
“ I never say there's brilliance coming out of Washington, D.C.,” Dammeyer said in the press conference. “But this is as close as I've seen.”
Skepticism remains
Others question if the rural health dollars will have a significant impact. James Byrd, who is running as a Democrat for U.S. Senate in Wyoming, said it’s taken too long for the money to hit the ground.
“To be frank with you, I think by the time these dollars roll into Wyoming, it'll be too late, and it won't be significant to make any difference,” Byrd said in a Sept. 21 interview with Wyoming Public Radio.
The federal government approved Wyoming’s proposal for spending the money in May. The state opened applications to local organizations in July and started divvying up funds in August.
The fate of about $11 million, at least some of which will go to maternal health, has yet to be decided. The state allocated that money to the Wyoming Hospital Association, which Johansson said will make decisions over the next month about where that will go.
This is just the first year of Rural Health Transformation Act funds. The program runs for four more years.
