The Alaska Department of Health announced the first round of funding for state projects under the Rural Health Transformation Program. Over the next five years, the state will get about $1 billion from the federal government for the project, but this first round of funding is small: 19 projects across the state will receive $4.5 million.
Almost $600,000 will go to Anchorage-based Alaska Behavioral Health. Chief operating officer Joshua Arvidson said the funding will help expand Seeds of Change, a program aimed at reaching and retaining Alaskans in their teens and early 20s.
"What we're proposing with this rural health transformation project at Seeds is to expand that engagement and activity into all the age ranges that we serve at Alaska Behavioral Health, which is actually a really wide age range," Arvidson said. "We serve all the way from young children up into seniors."
The program is based in a separate space with a hydroponic garden and offers training and activities that don't fall in the typical therapy bucket, creating a whole-person approach to mental health. The funding will also increase group therapy options, which Arvidson said are effective and underused in the state and in the mental health field in general.
The Alaska Native nonprofit Chugachmiut will get more than $600,000 to provide X-rays in the clinics it serves.
Director Kelly Baker said the program will allow the health organization to buy rolling X-ray machines for clinics in Seward and four villages in the Chugach region: Port Graham, Tatitlek, Nanwalek and Chenega. She said that will greatly reduce travel for patients seeking diagnostic X-rays, which will increase access.
"Someone would have to take time off work, arrange care for their children in order to get the X-ray," she said. "Have we seen people not get an X-ray due to these challenges? Yes."
She said the funding will serve Alaskans for many years to come.
The state is prioritizing projects that use the federal funding to make lasting changes in access to and quality of health care in the state. A representative from the Alaska Department of Health wrote in an email that assessing project proposals requires detailed work and communication with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and they'll announce more funded projects on a rolling basis each week.
