Rural health care systems face different challenges than their urban counterparts and yet most clinical research takes place in metropolitan settings – without any rural context.
Soon, that will change – at least in Nebraska – as UNMC leads an initiative to create a framework supporting participation of rural providers and other stakeholders in patient-centered clinical research.
The project will establish the Greater Nebraska Rural Research Network (GNRRN) and give Nebraska’s 62 critical access hospitals – which extend from Chadron to Pawnee City and communities in between – the tools and infrastructure to support research designed by and for rural practitioners and patients.
Such collective problem-solving research, ultimately, will provide more rural informed care to patients and rural health care systems, said UNMC’s Carol Geary, PhD, who is leading the two-year project, titled “Patient-Centered CER Capacity Building in Rural Nebraska.”
“In general, critical access hospitals are unaware of the opportunities for rural research and the approaches that might allow them to build off the clinical care they’re already giving,” Dr. Geary said.
While UNMC will administer and support development of the GNRRN, the network will ultimately be driven by the Nebraska Rural Health Association (NeRHA), led by executive director, Jed Hansen, PhD, who co-leads the project with Dr. Geary, assistant professor in UNMC’s Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology, and patient researcher, Jeff Ordway. NeRHA will be responsible for developing a research agenda co-created with the state’s critical access hospitals and the GNRRN.
“Strong rural health means strong rural Nebraska — and that strength starts with elevating local voices,” Dr. Hansen said. “This network gives rural hospitals and patients the chance to shape the research that affects their care and communities.”
“NeHRA will build the infrastructure and facilitate research happening in rural Nebraska,” Dr. Geary said. “Critical access hospitals have issues they’re trying to address and have mismatches between what works in their communities and what is considered best practice because best practice is typically defined in urban settings.”
Too often, organizations fix issues for themselves, Dr. Geary said but don’t inform anyone else. “This project is a mechanism for Nebraska’s critical access hospitals to say, “you have this problem; we have this problem, too,” and translate study results into evidence-based practice that can solve the problem for many.”
Funded through an award from the Eugene Washington PCORI Engagement Award Program, an initiative of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), the project will identify patient-centered comparative clinical effectiveness research (CER) knowledge gaps, as well as barriers to health care in rural Nebraska. The GNRRN plans to publish a rural research agenda by June 2026 designed to improve health outcomes based on shared application of best practices in rural settings.