Called the Rural Health Innovation Alliance, the group aims to transform the Chippewa Valley into a rural health care “epicenter” through the establishment of testbeds, microsites and by developing other ways to reduce barriers to innovation. The alliance aspires to make the Chippewa Valley region a go-to location for testing innovative care models and global technology solutions for rural health care delivery, which, if successful, could become a national model.

With rural health care delivery facing challenges nationwide, the coalition, involving UW-Eau Claire, Mayo Clinic Health System and Chicago-based Health Equity Innovation Partners, said the project is meant to be a collaboration. It will assemble health care providers, entrepreneurs and other partners to find solutions to improve health care delivery in rural areas.

The goal is to improve rural health care access and outcomes while reducing costs.

The Rural Health Innovation Alliance was introduced Thursday during a Wisconsin Technology Council luncheon held at UW-Eau Claire.

UW-Eau Claire Chancellor James Schmidt said the focus of the Rural Health Innovation Alliance is to create a sandbox model that spurs innovation through collaborations among multiple health care providers and others in an open environment where data, technology and successes are shared.

“The alliance will attract, support and grow global solutions for health care in the Chippewa Valley while becoming a model for other rural communities,” he said.

Schmidt said the project is a long-term initiative to create innovative delivery models for accessing health care.

One of the initial steps outlined by the alliance’s plan includes the creation of “microsites” within several communities.

The microsites aim to enhance access to health care for patients in rural areas, and the services available at these sites could include urgent care, behavioral health, primary care, maternal care, pediatrics and oncology. The microsites would feature both in-person and virtual care.

“The hybrid approach will utilize cutting-edge technology and delivery models focused on establishing new paradigms for future health care,” a press release from the university says.

Schmidt noted the alliance supports the work of those seeking solutions to recent Eau Claire and Chippewa Falls hospital closures and does not wish to duplicate or impede their efforts.

“Let me explain, this is not, it has got nothing to do with the closure of HSHS and Prevea facilities. And, obviously it heightened the urgency of our work; however, in addition to building out our legacy and collaborating with health care partners, we’ve been working on this since last summer,” Schmidt said. “This is an evolution of our work involved with a $9.4 million Workforce Innovation Grant that UW-Eau Claire received in December 2021 from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp.”

Schmidt said the university pursued the grant to create a bold vision and to address significant needs of rural communities.

”Another driver of this plan is our desire to leverage the value and potential of the new science and health science,” he said.

Other speakers Thursday included Ken Bahk and Kate Merton of the Chicago ARC, an organization that seeks to improve health equality by accelerating innovative solutions in health systems and the communities they serve.

Wisconsin Technology Council president Tom Still moderated a discussion among the panelists.

Bahk and Merton both said ARC was actively seeking locations to work on collaborative health care models and found the Chippewa Valley appealing.

Merton talked about her work with hospitals in East Coast cities that function largely separate from each other. She said it can be a challenge to work on innovation and technology for rural health care when organizations and competitors in medicine, tech and academia are not willing to work together.

The alliance is meant to ensure that does not happen locally.

Bahk echoed the sentiment, saying: “This is going to require so many different people, so many different institutions, so many different disciplines. And yes, we’re not always going to get along. But we’re committed for the long run because that is how long this is going to take.”

Merton, who grew up in and was educated in the United Kingdom, talked about the similarities between rural health care issues in the United States and the United Kingdom.

“We had the pleasure of first coming here in December. This is our eighth visit since then, and we’ve been trying to understand what’s going on locally. I think we’ve been looking at the fact that here you have obviously a community who’s incredibly engaged in what is going on. They want to make their own decisions about what their health care looks like and the access that they have,” she said. “We’ve also seen that you’ve got a great academic institution that’s going to be anchoring some of the activities going on and then you have multiple health systems around.”

She said all of these things made the Chippewa Valley appealing for the collaboration with the alliance.

“Our experience has been that when you try and do things in silos it rarely works,” she said. “There is like a long-term opportunity to really make the Chippewa Valley the rural health care epicenter of the U.S. There’s a great opportunity here.”

Ultimately, the alliance hopes to craft solutions that can be scaled across the country and perhaps around the world, officials said Thursday.