Program Overview

The Health Systems Resources Program was established to provide financial and technical assistance to achieve the goals of the program, which are:

- to promote affordable access to health care services to residents in rural areas of Washington State; and
- to assure the availability of health care providers to residents of rural areas and to urban underserved populations.  

The grant program is funded by state general funds and is contingent upon Legislative appropriation every two years.  The next cycle will be for 2009-20011. Interested entities will be invited to submit a letter of interest in late 2008.  A committee reviews the letters of interest and invites chosen projects to submit an application.  The application review committee then reviews the applications, makes the final selection and grants are awarded.

The program is described in Chapter 70.175 RCW, Chapter 70.185 RCW and Chapter 246-560 WAC.    In summary:

HSR grants are available to a for-profit, not-for-profit, or governmental entity that is:
  a. Acting on behalf of the population in a rural catchment area; and/or
  b. Acting on behalf of an urban underserved area (for recruitment and retention activities only).

The majority of basic health services addressed by the project must be provided to people living in Washington State.

Projects that are focused on assuring the availability of health care providers (recruitment and retention activities) require a 50% match and must serve places where:
  a. Problems with recruitment and retention of providers have been chronic; or
  b. The community is in need of primary care practitioners; or,
  c. The community has unmet health care needs for specific target populations.

Please direct any questions or comments to:
John Hanson, Rural Health Specialist
(360) 236-2819