Seven Rural Community Colleges Receive $5.93 Million for Healthcare Training 

Seven community colleges in what the Virginia Community College Association dubs the state’s “rural horseshoe” have received $5.93 million to train more healthcare workers.

A healthcare worker training mannequin rests in a bed in a classroom at Eastern Shore Community College. (Photo by Charlotte Rene Woods/Virginia Mercury)

Virginia has so far disbursed $122 million of its $198 million in Rural Health Transformation Fund money to organizations around the state. Associations, foundations and the state Health Department have been fielding applications from interested parties.

Virginia’s blueprint for using the funding is divided into several goals, including addressing healthcare workforce challenges, investing in telehealth, mobile clinics and upgraded healthcare technologies, and supporting chronic disease management and “food as medicine” programs.

Because community colleges can serve as an entry point for aspiring medical professionals, the RHTF funding for rural colleges is intended to help grow the healthcare workforce in areas of the state that have experienced shortages.

For Patrick & Henry Community College, the funding means it can add a part-time Licensed Practical Nurse program and a program designed to help LPNs become registered nurses.

The college already had a full-time LPN program but identified a need among working parents seeking to enter the field.

“Nursing school is no joke to begin with,” Patrick & Henry President Greg Hodges said. “When you couple that with trying to work and raise a family, that’s very, very challenging. So those students who want to continue to work full time and go to school part time now have that opportunity here.”

The college already partners with Sovah Health Martinsville to provide students with the clinical hours required as part of their curriculum. But Hodges noted the rural nature of surrounding areas and said students who don’t remain nearby after earning their degrees can fill positions at other rural hospitals.

Just as healthcare access more broadly has been a challenge in rural areas, Virginia officials have also noted behavioral health hurdles in those regions.

Mountain Gateway Community College will be using its RHTF award to expand instruction for future behavioral health workers, said Ben Worth, the college’s vice president of academic affairs.

“Primarily, we’re talking about bachelor’s-level and master’s-level degrees,” he said of many mental health professions. But the state’s Transfer Virginia program ensures that community college students’ credits can count toward those degrees when they transfer to other institutions.

That is why Worth said the RHTF can help the college prepare future psychologists and social workers in the region. The funding will support hiring instructors and launching a dual-enrollment program for high school students seeking a head start on earning the degrees they need to enter the workforce.

“Partly, it’s awareness — making sure (high school students) are aware that there are huge careers out there,” he said.

Worth added that the college will also focus on existing healthcare workers who lack a bachelor’s degree “so they can do that coursework while they’re still employed, and then earn degrees that can allow them to move up the ladder.”

He said the college’s focus on bolstering the behavioral health workforce also stems from conversations with regional community service boards and hospitals that expressed a need.

“When we think of healthcare, we don’t always immediately think of mental health needs and behavioral health needs,” Worth said. “So I’m really glad to see that it was included in the list of eligible programs that can be funded through the rural health initiative.”

With the next phase of funding to be announced by the end of next month, the selected community colleges can begin putting their share to work.

Virginia health leaders, lawmakers share enhanced healthcare resources for rural communities

There are 18 community colleges within the rural horseshoe, which stretches from Virginia’s Eastern Shore in a crescent through Southwest and Southside Virginia and into the mountain region near Winchester.

Ten colleges applied during the first wave of funding, and seven received awards.

With applications for the second phase of funding having closed on Sep. 14, the Virginia Community Colleges Association anticipates that the next wave of grants will continue to focus on nursing, behavioral health and physical therapy assistant programs. It will also focus on expanding or establishing radiologic technology, sonography and dental hygiene programs.

As RHTF money continues to roll out around Virginia, patients and providers are bracing for additional strains stemming from other federal actions.

When Congress created RHTF last summer, it also passed H.R. 1, a reconciliation bill that will remove 5,800 lawful immigrants from Medicaid next month and put about 300,000 Virginians at risk of potentially losing coverage by next year.

Changes to hospital funding mechanisms also stand to strain hospitals as free clinics and other safety-net providers prepare to take on patients who cannot always afford to pay for care.

The law can also shift more of the cost of funding the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to states. So far, more than 100,000 Virginians have lost SNAP benefits, which help low-income people and people with disabilities who cannot work stretch their food budgets.

Virginia Secretary of Health and Human Resources Marvin Figueroa has emphasized that while the RHTF can help alleviate longstanding rural healthcare challenges, it may not be enough to counter certain ripple effects from the reconciliation bill.

Worth noted that some Mountain Gateway students come from low-income backgrounds, so “SNAP benefits are really important for them.”

“Food insecurity, housing insecurity, access to transportation, access to childcare,” he said. “Those are all significant needs for some of the students that we serve, and so anything we can do to try to help address that is important.”

Hodges noted “concerns down the road” about the potential impact of H.R. 1 on healthcare.

For now, he said, the RHTF “gives us a prime opportunity to innovate, to maximize our technology base, and really come out of this.”

By Charlotte Rene Woods, Virginia Mercury

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