The university last week announced the Rural Health Innovation Alliance during a Wisconsin Technology Council luncheon in Eau Claire. The effort is meant to develop a “sandbox” model for innovation, supporting collaboration between health care providers and other partners.
“This is not a quick win solution, although we expect to see some quick progress,” Chancellor Jim Schmidt said during the event. “This is not something we’re going to study for the next several years … you should expect to see tangible things happening within the first six months.”
While the alliance wasn’t created in response to Hospital Sisters Health System network and Prevea shutting down hospitals and clinics in the region, Schmidt said the recent closures emphasize the urgency of improving health care access and quality for rural residents.
“As a related consequence of this project, we have the potential to spur economic development further in the Chippewa Valley,” he said. “We want to positively impact workforce development while attracting and retaining entrepreneurs, focusing on the IT community … software testing, clinical trials, medical device manufacturers, just to name a few.”
Also at the event, Chicago ARC Executive Director Kate Merton noted the region is anchored by UW-Eau Claire’s educational resources as well as health care systems operating in the region, which the alliance can build on as it develops.
“You’ve actually got those right ingredients ready to put together for a long-term plan,” she said. “We do need to deliver stuff near-term, but there is like a long-term opportunity to really make the Chippewa Valley the rural health care epicenter of the U.S.”
Schmidt noted the alliance is a “logical next step” following a 2021 workforce development grant from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., which provided $9.4 million to the university.
In a recent column on the effort, he said one of its initial steps will be to create health care “microsites” in local communities, offering services such as urgent care, behavioral health, primary care, pediatrics, oncology and more.
“The small, versatile microsites would feature both in-person and virtual care,” he wrote. “The hybrid approach will utilize cutting-edge technology and delivery models focused on establishing new paradigms for future health care. Ultimately, the alliance hopes those solutions can be scaled across the country and perhaps around the world.”
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