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American Heart Association Rural Health Care Outcomes Accelerator Program

Date: 05/14/25

American Heat Association

RURAL HEALTH CARE OUTCOMES ACCELERATOR

Enrollment open until June 30, 2025

Project Mission:

The Rural Health Care Outcomes Accelerator will work to ensure Americans living in rural areas have the best possible chance ofsurvival and the highest quality of life attainable by promoting consistent, timely, and appropriate evidence-based care.

Rural Hospital Eligibility & Impact:

Enrollment grants are available! Over 550 new participants have joined over the first 2.5 years of this program aiming to enroll700 rural participants. While the Rural Accelerator is in it's 3rd and final enrollment year, most of the program benefits will besustained except the no cost access to Get With The Guidelines®. The time to join this dynamic program is now! 150 new ruralprogram participant grants remain available within Get With The Guidelines® quality programs for coronary artery disease,heart failure, and stroke. Participants will be invited to learning collaboratives, clinical education courses, and benefit fromspecialized quality improvement consultation.  Target participants include Critical Access Hospitals, Rural Emergency Hospitals and/or hospitals in geographic areas outside of an urban setting located within census tracts associated with Rural UrbanCommuting Area of small, large, or isolated Rural.

Benefits for Rural Hospitals:

  • Rural Quality Program: Support New participants will receive Get With The Guidelines®- Stroke, CAD or HF at no cost for 3 years beginning with the year of their enrollment (2025, 2026, 2027) and support by a dedicated AHA Rural Quality Program Consultant.
  • Rural Education: AHA professional membership scholarships, continuing education courses, and clinical expert guided toolkits that can easily be consumed and assimilated by rural hospital teams will increase the translation of rural acute care opportunities into routine practice. These multimodal stroke, cardiac, and heart failure resources will align with AHA's Quality Improvement & Certification Programs, Scientific Community recommendations, and Outpatient Programs such as Target: PB, Check. Change. Cholesterol, target: Type 2 Diabetes.
  • Rural Community Network: An AHA virtual network that encourages peer to peer connection of health care professions within the inpatientand outpatient communities through an innovative, accessible, and interactive platform.
  • Model Sharing & Research: AHA convened quarterly cardiac and stroke rural learning collaboratives provide a forum for sharing modelpractice strategies and promote opportunities to present at regional and national rural conferences.  AHA’s RuralQuality Team will convene rural clinical experts and leaders and ultimately establish a writing committee todevelop and publish rural quality and outcomes research.
  • Rural Recognition: Equitable Get With The Guidelines®- Stroke, CAD and HF Rural Recognition Awards are available for rural hospitals who provide excellent care to these unique evidence-based performance measures.

For more information, please email RuralGWTGSupport@heart.org or apply at  American Heart Association Website.