VHA Office of Rural Health

Rural Mentored Implementations (RMIs)

Historically, the Office of Rural Health (ORH) provided seed funding for innovative local projects that sought to address rural Veterans’ health care and access issues. Building on the findings of this work, ORH identified projects that showed significant impact based on select criteria. These proven models of care—known as Rural Mentored Implementations (RMI) —are now being implemented nationwide.

Mentored implementation is accomplished when ORH and VRHRC project managers work with subject matter experts to assist U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) sites across the country in adopting RMIs. This assistance may include training, ongoing technical consultation, and initial funding. These programs:

• Increase access to care and services for rural Veterans and their families in the communities where they live
• Share clinical and operational knowledge among health care delivery professionals who serve rural Veterans
• Mentor program champions so they can successfully implement these strong practices
• Contribute to long-term improvements in the rural health care delivery system

RMIs are nominated through the Veterans Rural Heath Resource Centers.


Fiscal Year 2025 Rural Mentored Implementations (RMIs)

• Advanced Comprehensive Diabetes Care, promotes implementation and dissemination of the ACDC RMI to improve outcomes among Veterans with persistently poor type 2 diabetes control.
• Connecting Rural Providers with Geriatric Specialists Through Telemedicine, aims to improve access to interdisciplinary geriatric care by providing geriatric consultative care to Veterans in rural clinics using telemedicine and educational support to rural teams. to enhance their ability to deliver care to older Veterans and their family caregivers.
• Geriatric Research, Education, and Clinical Centers Scholars, is a workforce development program to fill the gap in clinicians who are trained in geriatrics and gerontology to care for aging Veterans residing in rural areas.
• Home Based Cardiac Rehabilitation, provides cardiac rehabilitation using telephone and video appointments for Veterans unable to access traditional models of care.
• Home Based Pulmonary Rehabilitation, delivers pulmonary rehabilitation using telephone and video to home appointments to rural Veterans unable to access traditional models of care.
• Personalized Implementation of Video Telehealth, uses personalized Implementation of Virtual Treatments for Rural Veterans (PIVOT-R) to improve access to mental health care by implementing VA Video Connect and optimizing the ability to access care.
• Prolonged Exposure for Primary Care Training and Implementation Initiative, trains VA embedded Primary Care Mental Health Integration (PCMHI) Mental Health (MH) and integrated care to expand treatment for rural veterans served in PC and other medical settings via face-to-face or telehealth modalities.
• Telehealth Collaborative Care for Rural Veterans with HIV Infection, aims to enhance the delivery of telehealth care to Veterans with HIV living in rural areas and to create a sustainable linkage to care network using telehealth services to Veterans who otherwise would have difficulty accessing high quality, comprehensive, and VA connected care.

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