Rural Healthcare
Support safe, efficient care delivery with trusted expertise and practical tools.
Safer care. Sustainable systems.
With proven tools, expert advisors, and data-driven insights, ECRI helps rural healthcare providers reduce risks, address staffing and resource challenges, and build resilient healthcare systems that deliver safe, reliable care close to home.
Improving Care Delivery in Rural Communities
Across rural communities, healthcare organizations face unique challenges, such as workforce shortages, resource constraints, and technology limitations. But with evidence-based strategies, expert guidance, and practical tools, providers can support the community, manage chronic disease more effectively, and adopt technology-enabled care models with confidence.
Rural health systems can build resilience, reduce preventable harm, and deliver safer, more sustainable care for patients and families.
Through strong partnerships with state, regional, and local agencies, our experts ensure that every solution reflects the cultural and clinical realities of rural populations, improving safety, quality, and long-term resilience.
How We Improve Rural Healthcare
Evidence-Based Solutions for Chronic Disease Management
We help you implement evidence-based, measurable interventions to strengthen chronic disease prevention and management. Our subject matter experts bring extensive knowledge in chronic disease and senior care; curriculum design and implementation; patient, family, and caregiver engagement; and web portal development and management—delivering practical solutions tailored to your organization’s needs.
Patient, Family, and Caregiver Engagement
We improve the health literacy of patients, families, and caregivers with consumer-facing resources and training related to chronic disease prevention and management.
Interprofessional Learning Collaboratives
We can create virtual Rural Health Learning and Sharing Collaboratives for your staff, giving them a space to connect, share experiences, and learn evidence-based practices for chronic disease prevention and management.
Guideline and Policy Development
We support the development of evidence-based guidelines and policies for rural healthcare by conducting systematic reviews that strengthen chronic disease prevention and management.
Technical Assistance for the Safe Adoption of Technology
We help healthcare stakeholders use clinical evidence assessments to evaluate emerging medical technologies and devices, providing the insights needed to make smarter purchasing, policy, and practice decisions.
Sustainable Care Systems
We help rural communities assess their healthcare delivery systems and identify system improvements across service lines, including preventive, ambulatory, emergency, inpatient, outpatient, and postacute care. Our experts also support the development of innovative care models, including value-based care arrangements and alternative payment models, to ensure sustainability and improve outcomes.
Patient Safety Organization
As an AHRQ-certified Patient Safety Organization (PSO), ECRI and the ISMP PSO has collected more than eight million adverse events from healthcare providers nationwide. We analyze this data and partner with critical access and rural hospitals to develop targeted action plans for improvement. Recent findings show that critical access hospitals report 10% more medication safety errors and 5% more near misses than the national average, highlighting key opportunities to strengthen patient safety across rural settings.
Just Culture
The Just Culture Company, an ECRI company, created the Rural Health Training Bundle to make just culture education more accessible in rural communities. Through virtual, live-hosted courses, participants become subject matter experts who lead culture change within their organizations. In partnership with Texas A&M University Rural Health PSO and Hometown Health, the program has supported about 40 organizations to date.
Here for You
We provide rural healthcare organizations with expert guidance, technical assistance, specialized training, and practical resources to address a wide range of challenges. By partnering with you, we ensure solutions are aligned with the unique cultural and clinical needs of each rural community.
Get in Touch
Let's start zeroing in on exactly how we can help.