Partners

University of Iowa (UI)

RTRC is based in the Carver College of Medicine and connected to the College of Public Health at the University of Iowa (UI).  This alliance brings valued experience in rural health, health care delivery, and comparative effectiveness research to expand telehealth knowledge.  The UI team’s long history of telehealth research further enables investigators to focus on areas of health care, access, and sustainability.  As an RTRC partner, the UI team has been charged by the Office for the Advancement of Telehealth (OAT) to specialize in setting measures and collecting data across multiple OAT-funded grantee programs, then analyzing data and publishing manuscripts to advance telehealth.  The UI team also leads RTRC projects researching use of telehealth in chronic diseases, sepsis, and substance use disorder as well as during COVID-19.  Some of these projects have been in collaboration with the Veteran’s Health Administration.  In the past six years, 20 manuscripts and nine research & policy briefs have been published from UI team RTRC projects. 

University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (UNC)

The North Carolina Rural Health Research Program (NC RHRP) is built upon nearly 50 years of rural health research at The Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. NC RHRP draws on the experience of a wide variety of scholars and researchers, analysts, managers, and health service providers associated with the Sheps Center to address problems in rural health care delivery through basic research, policy-relevant analyses, geographic and graphical presentation of data, and the dissemination of information to organizations and individuals who can use the information for policy or administrative purposes to address complex social issues affecting rural populations. The North Carolina Rural Health Research Program's project portfolio currently includes the NC Rural Health Research and Policy Analysis Center, the Medicare Rural Hospital Flexibility Program, the Rapid Response Project, and now a partnership in the Rural Telehealth Research Center. These projects are funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Federal Office of Rural Health Policy.

University of Southern Maine (USM)

Maine Rural Health Research Center (MRHRC) faculty and staff are affiliated with the Cutler Institute for Health and Social Policy in the Edmund S. Muskie School of Public Service. Located in Portland Maine, the Muskie School offers master's degrees in Public Policy and Planning and Public Health and the PhD in Public Policy. The Cutler Institute has 180 multidisciplinary faculty and research staff from diverse professional and academic backgrounds working on projects spanning health, disability and aging, child and family policy, and justice policy. One of seven national rural health research centers funded by the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy, HRSA, DHHS, the MRHRC Center has 10 core faculty and staff as well as collaborating faculty and staff from the Muskie School and USM. Although most of the Center's work focuses on rural health research and evaluation, the Center has also been engaged in rural policy development, technical assistance, and demonstration projects in Maine and other states.