IRS Team Advocates for Rural Health Transformation at NRHA and ASTP Annual Meetings
- Feb 27
- 2 min read
From advocating on the Hill to ensure rural health transformation funding reaches those most in need, to strategizing with leading rural healthcare stakeholders at the National Rural Health Association (NRHA) and Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy (ASTP) annual meetings from February 10-12, our team just had a productive week in Washington, D.C.!
Key Highlights from #NRHA2026
Hill Engagement: Meeting with members of Congress to advocate for rural health spending and highlighting our team’s ability to address the most pressing healthcare needs in traditionally underserved areas — particularly through innovative grants management, emergency response coordination, and infectious disease outbreak forecasting and preparedness technology solutions.
Aligning Rural Health Priorities and Innovation: Collaborating with leading rural health stakeholders and federal representatives on how Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP) funds can best support current healthcare needs — and how our technology and consulting services can help accelerate implementation and measurable impact.
Main Highlights from #ASTP
Improve Rural Health Technology: Benefitting from engaging updates on the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA), standards development through Health Level Seven International (HL7), and the evolving Electronic Health Record (EHR) ecosystem, with a focus on how these technologies can improve healthcare outcomes in both rural and urban communities.
IRS Focus on Continued #RuralHealth Innovation
Strategizing with public health innovators on how our disease forecasting and emergency response coordination platforms can work in tandem with TEFCA, Detor, and other public health technology solutions to strengthen patient care nationwide.
Overall, these engagements led to valuable exchanges with rural health innovators and key stakeholders and reinforced the importance of aligning policy, interoperability, and operational capability to advance sustainable rural health transformation nationwide.
Our team looks forward to helping implement these policy priorities into programs with real impact to serve the nation’s most vulnerable populations.
