Hello, RHT Community!
As RHTP moves from planning to implementation, I have been thinking about a question that I hope we keep in the conversation:
Who will sustain the transformation?
We are making significant investments in access, technology, new care models, partnerships, and workforce pipelines. All are essential. But recruiting people into rural healthcare and creating the conditions that make them choose to stay are two different challenges.
Transformation itself asks a lot of already-stretched teams, new technology, new workflows, new partnerships, new expectations. That is why I opine workforce experience deserves a place in the implementation conversation. Turnover, vacancies, overtime, and contract labor tell us what has already happened. What if we also paid attention to what happens before someone leaves? Specifically: 1) Where are people becoming overloaded or isolated? 2) Where is trust strong or beginning to erode? 3) Who are the informal connectors holding teams together? 4) Where is critical knowledge concentrated in one or two people?
In a rural organization, losing one person can mean much more than filling one vacancy. It can affect access, continuity, relationships, and sometimes an entire service. Five years from now, I hope we measure RHTP success not only by what we built, purchased, or launched, but also by what we strengthened.
Technology is infrastructure. Facilities are infrastructure. People and relationships are infrastructure, too.
I am curious what others are seeing. Where is workforce experience showing up in your RHTP implementation conversations and where might we still have a blind spot?
Thank you!
Sincerely, Ava
Ava, this is such an important question.
I completely agree that people and relationships are infrastructure too.
RHTP implementation will ask a lot from rural teams that are already stretched: new technology, new reporting, new workflows, new partnerships, and new expectations. If workforce experience is not part of the design, transformation itself can become another source of burnout.
The early warning signs matter. Where are people overloaded? Where is knowledge concentrated in one person? Where are informal connectors holding the organization together? Where is trust strong — or starting to weaken?
In rural healthcare, losing one person can affect far more than one role. It can disrupt access, continuity, community relationships, and sometimes an entire service line.
The strongest RHTP projects will not only build new programs. They will strengthen the people and teams needed to sustain them.
Workforce experience should be measured, supported, and designed into implementation from the beginning.
Thank you, RCJ Team. I appreciate you reinforcing this perspective. Your point that transformation itself can become another source of strain if workforce experience is not designed into implementation is especially important. My hope is that as RHTP moves forward, we continue to think not only about what we are building, but about the people who will carry and sustain it. Grateful to be part of this conversation, and community.
Sincerely, Ava