Utah drops a $94M opp, Maryland out w/ $20M+ in rural workforce and connectivity funding, Pennsylvania opens a $25M EHR & HIO interoperability payment
Fridays.
In this issue:
Montana names its Center of Excellence Advisory Council
North Carolina details Rural Health Innovation Fund
Tennessee Locks the Calendar on Its Short-Range Health Tech RFA
West Virginia upshots from RHTP Informational Webinar Session 2
Maryland comes out with $20M+ in rural workforce and connectivity funding
Pennsylvania opens a $25M EHR & HIO interoperability payment
Wyoming publishes two of three tech vendor RFPs
Utah drops $94M in one morning — and hands the biggest piece to a consortium that doesn’t exist yet
Montana names its Center of Excellence Advisory Council
On July 10, DPHHS Director Charlie Brereton appointed a 26-member Advisory Council to guide Initiative 2 of Montana's federally approved rural health transformation plan — the Center of Excellence focused on population-health infrastructure, remote care, and rural provider partnerships. The roster is a who's-who of Montana rural health: critical access hospital CEOs (Clark Fork Valley, Frances Mahon Deaconess, St. Luke, Northern Montana), PPS system leaders (Benefis, Bozeman Health, Billings Clinic, Intermountain), FQHCs (Marias, One Health), tribal health (Rocky Boy), the state's payers (Mountain Health Co-Op, BCBS Montana), and three legislators. Notably, the council will "closely collaborate with the selected CoE Strategy and Analytics vendor" — a signal that Montana's marquee procurement is at or near award. Members serve through 2028. Montana's RHTP carries a $233.5 million first-year award, with up to $1.2 billion over five years.
North Carolina details Rural Health Innovation Fund
The state put concrete numbers behind its digital-health initiative this week. NCDHHS and NCDIT jointly announced three programs under Initiative Six of the state's Rural Health Transformation Program. The headline is a new Rural Health Innovation Fund — $20 million a year for up to five years — to help rural providers assess digital needs and modernize infrastructure, launching this fall. Alongside it: funded connectivity and training to link rural providers to NC HealthConnex, the state HIE, and a Digital Health Literacy push that, starting July 1, 2026, lets anyone dialing 211 reach a Digital Health Navigator (9 a.m.–6 p.m., weekdays). Governor Josh Stein, HHS Secretary Dev Sangvai, and IT Secretary Nate Denny all lent quotes — a sign NC is treating digital infrastructure as a cross-cabinet priority. The Innovation Fund is the one to watch: a fall launch means a provider-facing application process is coming, and "more information... leading up to the launch date" is exactly the language that precedes a posted opportunity.
Tennessee Locks the Calendar on Its Short-Range Health Tech RFA
(via email)
On July 10, 2026, Tennessee’s Department of Health issued Amendment #1 to Request for Application #34320-20327 — the Healthcare Resiliency Program’s Health Technology and Innovation (Short-Range) opportunity.
The amendment finalizes the procurement calendar. The front-end milestones — the RFA issuance, the pre-response teleconference (11:30 a.m. Central), and the written Questions & Comments deadline (2:00 p.m. Central) — are marked confirmed. The back half of the schedule is now fixed with hard dates, effective on release.
State responses to written questions and comments: July 13, 2026
Applications due: July 27, 2026 at 2:00 p.m. Central
Evaluation notice released: August 24, 2026
Contract effective start date: September 1, 2026
West Virginia upshots from RHTP Informational Webinar Session 2
West Virginia moves from vision to implementation. At its second statewide RHTP webinar on July 9, the West Virginia Department of Health reported that it has released 20+ funding opportunities with 10+ more coming this summer on a rolling basis — putting nearly all of its $199.5M Year 1 award into the procurement pipeline. Secretary of Health Dr. Arvin Singh framed the program as a national proving ground: “If health care transformation can work here, we believe it can work anywhere in rural America.”
The deck disclosed Year 1 allocations across the state’s seven pillars for the first time — led by Connected Care Grid ($45.9M) and Smart Care Catalyst ($45.6M), followed by Personal Health Accelerator ($29.0M), HealthTech Appalachia ($18.8M), Mountain State Care Force ($15.2M), Rural Health Link ($13.8M), and Health to Prosperity ($13.4M). (Administrative costs are excluded, so the pillar figures don’t sum to $199.5M.)
WV’s listserv has grown past 850 subscribers. Each solicitation is drawing 30–50 applications, scored by three-reviewer panels at roughly 2–4 hours per application, with award decisions expected this summer. All applications and proposals route through the wvOASIS Vendor Self Service portal under “Grant Funding Opportunities,” and the state reiterated hard cost caps: administrative costs at 10%, provider payments at 15%, EMR replacement at 5%, and the Rural Tech Catalyst Fund at 10% or $20M (whichever is lower).
Still to come this summer (previewed but not yet posted): inpatient and outpatient remote patient monitoring (Connected Care Grid); rotational staffing pools (Mountain State Care Force); EMS collaboratives, public transportation, vehicle acquisition, and a unified health-mobility platform (Rural Health Link); statewide value-based payment model design, provider VBC onboarding and technical assistance, and PACE expansion (Smart Care Catalyst).
