Small Rural Hospital Improvement Grant Program (SHIP)

The Small Rural Hospital Improvement Grant Program (SHIP) is a federally funded program that encourages the formation of consortiums and the pooling of dollars by State Offices of Rural Health (SORH) to purchase goods and services as a group.  Such an approach is helpful when hospitals are not currently in existing systems that assist with these economies of scale.  The Ohio SHIP Program is administered through the Ohio Department of Health, SORH. 

Purpose

The purpose of the federal SHIP Program is to help small rural hospitals do any or all of the following:

• Pay for costs related to implementation of prospective payment systems (PPS)
• Comply with provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 
• Reduce medical errors and support quality improvement (QI) strategies   

Goals

The goals of the Ohio SHIP Program are:

• To continue strengthening collaborative efforts between the SORH, Ohio Hospital Association (OHA) and the Foundation for Healthy Communities in efforts to assist small rural hospitals in Ohio as they work to address the current challenges facing the rural health care delivery system.
• To encourage small rural hospitals to work collaboratively with their larger network hospitals as well as other rural hospitals to address PPS, HIPAA and QI issues or concerns.
• To provide a continued opportunity for those small rural hospitals not designated as Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs) to work with both the SORH and CAHs on mutually shared issues.

Funding

All of the funding received from the federal government for the SHIP Program in Ohio is distributed directly to 33 eligible hospitals in the state for activities related to one, two or all three of the purposes identified above.  The SORH partners with the OHA’s Foundation for Healthy Communities to disburse grant dollars to eligible facilities.  Upon request, SHIP staff provides technical assistance to hospitals in identifying potential projects as well as assistance with implementation and evaluation.

Because all 33 SHIP hospitals in Ohio are CAHs, the SHIP and Medicare Rural Hospital Flexibility (Flex) Programs have been integrated where possible.  This allows for resources to be utilized more efficiently and for information, education and assistance to be targeted appropriately.   

A statewide network of small rural hospitals has formed in Ohio as a direct result of both the Flex and SHIP Programs and efforts surrounding the Flex-initiated Quality Improvement Work Group (see Flex Program page for QI Work Group information).  Additionally, SHIP hospitals are encouraged to participate in all Flex-sponsored educational forums (conferences, workshops, etc.), the quality benchmarking project and the quality improvement listserv. 

Mailing Address:     
Ohio Department of Health
SHIP Program
Primary Care and Rural Health Programs
246 North High Street
Columbus, Ohio 43215

Telephone: (614) 752-5133
Fax: (614) 995-4235

E-mail: bchssd@odh.ohio.gov

Last Updated:          8/14/08
Last Reviewed:        8/14/08