Between 2005 and 2023, approximately 150 rural hospitals — defined as hospitals not located within a metropolitan area by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget and the U.S. Census Bureau — have either closed entirely or converted into a noninpatient care facility. Behind these closures is the fact that rural hospitals’ financial challenges loom larger than those of their urban counterparts. Rural hospitals see fewer patients, leading to fewer delivered services and, therefore, fewer Medicare and private insurance reimbursements for provided services.
These vast closures create challenges for citizens and hospital staff alike by imposing significant barriers to care and often forcing staff to relocate or find outside-of-healthcare jobs, worsening the current and projected nationwide healthcare staff shortage.
Financial Help on The Way for Rural Hospitals?
Fortunately, some assistance could be on the way for the roughly 1,800 remaining U.S. rural community hospitals in the form of congressional funding. Despite its plan to cut federal spending by approximately $1.02 trillion on Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program benefits over 10 years, the 2025-passed Public Law 119-21, otherwise known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”, does include the “Rural Health Transformation Program,” which aims to aid rural hospitals.
Specifically, the RHT Program outlines that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will spread $10 billion each year throughout the U.S. during the 2026 through 2030 fiscal years, for a total of $50 billion over the five-year span. Rural populations, number of rural health facilities, other state characteristics, and state-proposed initiatives determined which states receive the most financial aid, with the proposals needing to include initiatives related to the RHT Program’s five goals, per CMS:
- Promoting preventive care and chronic disease management
- Improving rural providers’ efficiency and financial sustainability
- Recruiting and retaining rural healthcare workers
- Developing more flexible and value-based payment models
- Improving access to technology like digital health tools
Which States Have Received the Most Rural Health Transformation Program Funds?
In January 2026, CMS provided states with an average of $200 million each. Texas, Alaska, and California received the most funds, with Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Jersey receiving the least; the former having large rural populations or land area and the latter having relatively small rural populations. However, the difference in awarded funds is comparatively marginal, as the law requires half of the annual funds be evenly distributed across approved states.
What’s The Best Way for Rural Hospitals to Spend Their Funds?
To make the most of their awarded funds, rural hospitals should seek facility-optimizing solutions that reduce the burden on already stretched-thin staff. These solutions should also align with the five goals of the RHT Program, such as improving provider efficiency and enhancing access to digital health tools.
OneVue Sense® Environmental Monitoring by Primex provides hospitals of all sizes with this kind of solution. Specifically, through scalable environmental monitoring, OneVue Sense technology keeps assets, environments, and patients safe.
To improve efficiency, OneVue Sense Temperature Monitoring extends hospital staff by eliminating manual data logging for internal asset storage temperatures. This automated monitoring solution continuously logs temperatures and sends this data to the web-based OneVue® Software Platform, a valuable digital health tool where audit-ready and on-demand reports live. With OneVue Sense, already-stretched-thin rural hospital staff can take failed audits off their long list of things to worry about.
To protect irreplaceable and valuable assets such as vaccines, medications, bloodwork, or lab samples, the OneVue Sense Temperature Monitoring solution also provides real-time alerts via text message, email, or phone call if it detects an out-of-range measurement. These alerts are helpful if a fridge is accidentally left open, a cord is accidentally unplugged, or there’s an unexpected power outage, providing staff ample time to take corrective action before costly asset loss.
Preventing asset loss is crucial for rural hospitals, which face unique challenges that urban hospitals don’t, such as longer supply lead times, sometimes limited blood bank access, and lingering overhead expenses. OneVue Sense protects rural hospitals’ assets from ruination, which is detrimental to both a hospital’s bottom line and patient experience.
Ensuring that assets like vaccines, medications, and lab samples are stored safely with the help from OneVue Sense promotes preventive care and chronic disease management, which aligns with the RHT Program’s goals. Also, by alleviating burden on hospital staff through automated temperature monitoring, OneVue Sense can assist in retaining hospital staff.
What Other Kinds of Primex Technology Can Help Improve Rural Hospitals?
Beyond temperature monitoring, Primex offers additional facility-optimizing technology that is a perfect use for congressional funds, such as:
- Primex Sync™ Synchronized Time, which keeps appointments, procedures, and staff running on the same, synchronized time. With analog and/or digital clocks throughout an entire hospital’s footprint, a facility can achieve synchronized time by way of either a patented Radio 72 MHz frequency transmitter, an existing Wi-Fi network, a Bluetooth® Low Energy mesh system, or by Power over Ethernet (PoE) — whatever fits best into a specific facility.
- Primex Notify™ InfoBoard™ Displays to disperse visual critical notifications at the press of a button or customized messages to inform, direct, or update staff and/or patients.
- OneVue Sense Differential Pressure Monitoring to ensure operating rooms and isolation suites are properly pressurized to prevent the spread of infection.
- OneVue Sense Ambient Temperature and Humidity Monitoring to optimize patient comfort by providing indoor comfort condition data and alerts to customized environmental fluctuations.
- OneVue Sense Water Leak Monitoring to detect small leaks and prevent them from turning into expensive and disruptive floods.
- OneVue Sense Contact Closure Monitoring to track the opening and closing of two contact points — such as an important medicine cabinet, a fridge or freezer closure, or a patient door — to track authorized or unauthorized access.
Hospital staff can manage all of these technologies seamlessly within the easy-to-use, mobile-friendly OneVue Software platform, making OneVue Sense, Primex Sync, and Primex Notify an all-in-one solution that can add significant value to every rural hospital. Even when funds remain tight, the long-term benefits that these technology improvements bring are sound investments that remain helpful for many years.
If your rural hospital is seeking proven, hospital-strengthening solutions to add with funds gained by the RHT Program, look no further and contact us today to get started.
