Small Rural Hospital Improvement Grant Program
The Small Rural Hospital Improvement Grant Program (SHIP) is a federally funded program through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration, Office of Rural Health Policy. The federal grant provides additional resources to small rural hospitals to:
- VBP - Improving data collection activities in order to facilitate reporting to Hospital Compare.
- ACOs - Improving quality outcomes. Focus on activities that support QI such as reduction of medical errors as well as education and training in data collection and reporting and benchmarking.
- Payment Bundling - Building accountability across the continuum of care. Funding could be used to improve care transitions between ambulatory and acute, acute to upstream acute and acute to step-down facility. This could be done in the form of training, clinical care transition protocol development or data collection that documents these processes.
- PPS - Maintaining accurate PPS billing and coding such as updating chargemasters or providing training in billing and coding.
The Iowa program was established per Iowa Code 135M.4 and Iowa Administrative Rule (Chapter 109) 
.
2012 - 2013 Grant Application
The FFY12 SHIP application has been released. This is an application for SHIP funding during: October 1, 2012 through August 31, 2013. This application is due no later then April 11, 2012. Late applications will NOT be accepted.
Eligibility:
- "small" is defined as 49 available beds or less, as reported on the hospital's most recently filed Medicare Cost report, line 12.
- The average daily census or average staffed bed count can NOT be used to determine hospital eligibility.
- Hospitals reporting a licensed bed count greater than 49 on Line 12 but that staff 49 beds or fewer, may self-certify eligibility by submitting a written statement including: 1) the number of staffed beds at the time of the most recent cost report submission, 2) the cost reporting period of the most recently filed cost report, and 3) the signature of the certifying official.
- Regarding eligibility, the 49 beds or less refer to acute care beds only and does not include psyche unit beds.
- "rural" is defined as located outside a Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA); or located in a rural census tract of a MSA as determined under the Goldsmith Modification or the Rural Urban Commuting Areas (RUCAs) and
- "hospital" is defined as non-federal, short-term, general acute care facility.
Grant Awards:
Iowa received a notice of grant award for $746,036.00 for 2011-2012 year. Fifteen percent of the award is allowed for administrative costs. $4484.00 of the funds is allocated to coordinate activities with the Iowa Hospital Association to conducting trainings and webinars to educate the SHIP hospitals about IDC-10. The remaining will be divided equally among the 84 eligible hospitals that applied. Each eligible hospital will receive $7323.00.
Additional Resources:
Contact Information:
Iowa Small Hospital Improvement Program
Iowa Dept of Public Health
321 East 12 St., 4th fl. Lucas Bldg
Des Moines, IA 50319
(515) 423-2690
FAX (515) 242-6384
