HRSA: The Robin Hood of the HHS

Jessica Puente

The Health Resources and Services Administration is an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

It is the primary federal agency for improving access to health care services for people who are uninsured, isolated, or medically vulnerable. Essentially, they’re like the Robin Hood of the HHS.

Our lawyers insist I tell you HRSA is not in fact stealing money from anyone. The point is HRSA was created to help those most in need.

HRSA has six bureaus and 12 offices. They support more than 90 programs that provide health care to people who are geographically isolated, economically, or medically challenged.

They do this primarily through grants and cooperative agreements with community and faith-based organizations, colleges and universities, hospitals, state, local, and tribal governments, and private entities.

But their giving doesn’t end there. HRSA’s Health Care Systems Bureau operates the Organ Donation and Transplantation program which has helped more than 145 million people become registered organ donors. Along with serving more than 50% of people living with diagnosed HIV, HRSA’s Ryan White HIV/AIDS Bureau has committed to reducing new infections to a level that essentially eliminates transmission. There’s also an entire bureau dedicated to maternal and child health.

A large portion of HRSA’s budget goes to Rural Health. Nearly 1 in 5 people in the United States live in rural areas and are often far from health care providers which can be life-threatening in the event of an emergency. Rural hospitals face financial strain, physician and staff shortages, and so many other unique challenges. Federal funding helps keep the lights on for these crucial health providers.

While a significant part of HRSA’s budget goes towards creating access to primary health care, they also allocate funds toward educating, training, and connecting health care professionals to communities in need just like Robin Hood’s Merry Men.

Unfortunately, that assistance can come with tasks that take up a lot of time and resources. Most hospital administrators spend hours manually updating complex spreadsheets or looking through filing cabinets filled with documents, creating training courses, and organizing cross-trainings. Manual management of education programs and compliance is tedious and prone to error. And compliance errors mean jeopardizing funding. Not ideal.

So how can health care providers keep their government funding coming? Ideally, they would employ a team to manage it all, but if they’re already under financial constraint, that may not be an option. Another option would be to pay someone to do, but that runs into the same issue. Or does it?

HRSA is the Robin Hood of the HHS after all and like we’ve learned, they’re all about giving access to those who need it most. HRSA offers numerous grants to help health care organizations expand education for their providers. This includes award-winning, cloud-based medical training software like MedTrainer.

MedTrainer offers an expansive course library and the ability for administrators to assign microlearning courses to groups of people based on their specific roles. It’s fully remote and simple to track including automatic reminders. Additionally, MedTrainer’s system can track and keep documentation on individual staff compliance so you’re always ready for HRSA Operational Site Visits.

MedTrainer offers other functionalities like Credentialing and Compliance platforms that can seamlessly be added to the Learning platform. This way administrators can make sure their health organization is up to date on everything from education, to credentialing, and compliance all from one place.

If your organization is receiving HRSA funding or is looking to apply, learn more about how MedTrainer can help your organization save time and money.