Building a Digital Backbone: How States Can Modernize Rural Healthcare with RHTP Funding
The Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP), a $50 billion federal initiative spanning five years, presents states with a historic opportunity to stabilize and modernize healthcare in rural communities. Central to sustaining rural healthcare is the hub and spoke model, where a large central hub hospital can provide managed services, specialist access, and technology support to smaller rural spoke facilities. This model enhances care coordination, resource sharing, and specialist availability, creating a sustainable regional healthcare ecosystem.
Scaling this model requires significant infrastructure investment to build a robust, secure, and high-performance digital backbone. Investments must ensure reliable broadband connectivity, secure networks, and scalable telehealth platforms tailored to the size and capacity of each rural hospital—from small Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs) to large regional hubs. We encourage states to form collaborative consortiums involving multiple healthcare providers to leverage economies of scale and regional coordination, a critical requirement of the grant. Cisco’s modular, scalable solutions enable states and their designated hubs to design and deploy this infrastructure, supporting continuous patient care, advanced cybersecurity, and operational efficiency.
By investing in digital resilience through the hub and spoke model, states can extend high-quality care to rural populations, support the delivery of care that can lead to improved health outcomes, and build sustainable healthcare ecosystems that withstand disruptions and grow with community needs. The application deadline for RHTP is November 5, 2025, making timely investment critical to leverage this historic funding opportunity.
This approach aligns with RHTP priorities by modernizing infrastructure, strengthening workforce capabilities, enabling innovative care delivery, and ensuring long-term sustainability through scalable, secure, and adaptable digital health ecosystems.
The need for digital resilience in rural healthcare
- Infrastructure Challenges by Hospital Size: Rural hospitals vary widely—from small CAHs with fewer than 26 beds to larger rural emergency hospitals and regional referral centers. Digital resilience solutions must be customized to hospital size and capacity to optimize investment and impact.
- Connectivity and Cybersecurity: Smaller hospitals often face greater challenges securing reliable broadband and defending against cyber threats due to limited resources. This is compounded by a historical lack of investment in rural healthcare infrastructure. Additionally, healthcare remains the most targeted sector for cyberattacks, with the proliferation of connected medical devices increasing the attack surface and complexity of securing these environments.
- Operational Continuity: Disruptions from cyberattacks or infrastructure failures disproportionately affect smaller rural hospitals, risking patient care and revenue streams.
Benefits of investing in digital resilience
- Tailored Infrastructure Design: Solutions are scalable and sized specifically for hospital complexity, ensuring cost-effective deployment that meets unique operational demands.
- Continuous Patient Care: Reliable networks and backup systems minimize downtime, ensuring uninterrupted access to EHRs, imaging, and telehealth. Digital resilience can reduce unplanned downtime by up to 25%, strengthening continuity of care for rural patients, especially critical as nearly 96% of healthcare organizations report at least one unplanned EHR outage, impacting patient safety.
- Enhanced Security: Advanced, integrated cybersecurity protects sensitive patient data and ensures compliance. Modern frameworks can reduce security incidents, with examples showing a 97% reduction in data entry incidents from phishing simulations. This is vital, as 92% of healthcare organizations experienced at least one cyberattack in 2024, disproportionately affecting rural hospitals.
- Operational Efficiency: Stable IT infrastructure reduces staff burden and supports innovative care models like remote monitoring and virtual collaboration. By scaling telehealth and RPM, states can extend access to specialists for an estimated 87% more rural patients who currently travel more than double the distance of urban patients for care, significantly improving access and completion rates.
- Economic and Community Stability: Reliable healthcare infrastructure attracts and retains residents, supporting rural economic development.
Cost and investment considerations
| Hospital Size/Category | Package Description | Investment Estimate per Facility |
|---|---|---|
| Small/Critical Access Hospital (<26 beds) | Essential connectivity, basic security, telephony services, telehealth via Webex endpoint | $1.25M |
| Medium/Rural Emergency Hospital (26-100 beds) | Enhanced network, full security suite, integrated collaboration tools | $2.5M |
| Large/Rural Referral Center/Regional Hub (>100 beds) | High-performance network, advanced cybersecurity, AI-ready compute, centralized collaboration tools | $5M |
- Investment Scale: Costs vary based on hospital size and existing infrastructure. Smaller hospitals require foundational network upgrades and cybersecurity, while larger hospitals should invest in scalable data centers and advanced telehealth platforms.
- Cost Efficiency: Cisco’s modular and scalable solutions allow phased investments aligned with hospital capacity and growth projections, optimizing return on investment.
Alignment with RHTP priorities
- Modernizing Infrastructure: Upgrading telemedicine/collaboration platforms, network resilience, and cybersecurity tailored to hospital size.
- Strengthening Workforce: Supporting recruitment and retention through reliable technology and training.
- Innovative Care Delivery: Supporting the delivery of preventative care, chronic disease management, and behavioral health services through scalable AI-powered digital infrastructure tailored to rural health community needs.
- Sustainability: Ensuring long-term operational and financial viability through resilient systems and shared resource models.
Next steps
States must submit their RHTP applications by November 5, 2025. Investing now in digital resilience tailored to rural hospital size will transform healthcare delivery, support the delivery of care that can lead to improved patient outcomes, and build sustainable health ecosystems. Cisco stands ready to partner with your state to develop compelling applications and implement solutions that maximize this singular funding opportunity.
For more information on navigating the funding process with confidence, reach out to Cisco’s Public Funding Office.
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