Training The Rural Healthcare Workforce

ARHP is committed to improving the healthcare workforce in the Arkansas Delta by providing free, on-site trauma simulation training and certification for hospital teams, emergency department staff, and nursing students. These trainings, provided by UAMS Centers for Simulation Education, include classroom instruction as well as expanded simulation-based training, which delivers an opportunity for learning that is both immersive and experiential. This enables participants to practice procedure-based skills as individual healthcare workers as well as practice communication, leadership and team working to improve system performance.

ARHP’s partnership with UAMS Centers for Simulation Education has been recognized as having assisted in training more healthcare providers and EMS staff than any other organization in the state of Arkansas through the USDA Delta Healthcare Services Programs.

ARHP’s mobile unit transports simulation training equipment, supplies, and UAMS certified physicians and staff to sites throughout rural Arkansas to provide:

Adult & Infant Trauma Training
Coding Training & Certification
ASLS Training and Certification
OB Trauma Training
Sepsis Training
Diabetic Ketoacidosis Training (DKA)
Critical Nursing Skills

On-Site Simulation Training & Support

Just over the past year ARHP has educated over 153 healthcare providers and workers at 18 participating sites through its on-site simulation training program. Trainings have included ASLS,Stroke Ambushes, OB Trauma Training, Coding Training, Sepsis Training, and Pediatric Trauma training. ARHP continues to address the training needs of the local healthcare workforce through regular meetings with staff through professional roundtables. Over the next year, ARHP will expand on-site training to include opioid overdose training, mental health training, and suicide training for healthcare professionals. All on-site simulation training is provided by UAMS Center for Simulation Education and UAMS Institute for Digital Health and Innovation professionals.

Compliance, Orientation, and Continuing Education via Distance Learning

Over the past year, ARHP has provided 43,079 compliance, orientation, and continuing courses via distance learning to the majority of ARHP hospital and clinic members as well as to partnering community health centers in the region.

Certified Diabetes Education

ARHP continues to support efforts to increase certified diabetes education sites throughout the service area. Over the past year, 28 healthcare professionals have completed diabetes education training.

Mental & Behavioral Health Training

Over the past year, 141 healthcare providers have been educated through ARHP mental and behavioral health training opportunities.

quality Improvement Support

Rural primary care providers in rural Arkansas are in need of evidence-based quality improvement and infrastructure initiatives that will support and enhance the care they provide their patients. In order for efforts to be effective, organizational and infrastructural gaps in foundational elements of quality improvement, like accurate data and enhanced EMR utilization as well as education and staffing support for care coordination need to be addressed. The problem is not isolated to a single provider or hospital system. Gaps are systemic throughout the region. To this effect, ARHP is:

Engaging fourteen hospitals (ARHP consortia members) and nineteen rural primary care clinics in collaborative efforts to support and enhance quality improvement activities throughout the region by lending the expertise, support, and technical assistance of a shared staffing model (project director, data specialist, and chronic care manager) to all participating clinics in order to fill critical gaps and establish new evidence-based models of care in the region.
Providing clinical support services for mental and behavioral health services via telehealth.
Providing patient assistance services such as insurance enrollment, prescription assistance, and Medicare enrollment to address population health.
Providing care coordination initiatives that will support patients through prevention and education.
Assisting participating clinics become PCMH certified sites.

" UAMS has had a long-standing and deep relationship with the Arkansas Rural Health Partnership. We consider this to be a strategic partnership joined by a passionate, shared commitment to common goals and a focus on how the university can support the training, education and clinical initiatives in the Delta region of Arkansas."

- UAMS Chancellor Cam Patterson, M.D., MBA

Education & Training

ARHP Hospital Membership Services

Community Outreach Initiatives

Patient Education & Services

Healthcare Provider Education

Current Projects

Rural Responses to the Opioid Epidemic Grant

AR Delta Health Education For Local Providers (HELP)

AR Rural Mental Health Outreach

Arkansas Rural Opioid Outreach Project

Arkansas Delta Healthy Communities Project