The Oregon Rural Health Excellence Award is offered by the Oregon Office of Rural Health (ORH) at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU). This award recognizes exceptional efforts by rural healthcare and community organizations across Oregon in addressing significant healthcare challenges. ORH provides leadership and support to rural communities to improve health outcomes and promote innovation and quality in healthcare delivery throughout the state. This recognition highlights the commitment of rural entities that use resourcefulness, collaboration, and innovation to improve healthcare access, equity, and quality.

The purpose of the Rural Health Excellence Award is to celebrate and honor hospitals, rural health clinics (RHCs), local public health departments (LPHDs), emergency medical services (EMS) agencies, and community-based organizations (CBOs) that have implemented effective strategies addressing critical healthcare problems. Projects must demonstrate data-informed planning and impactful results and should ideally be replicable by other rural organizations. Areas of focus include improving care access for vulnerable populations, promoting health equity, reducing medical errors and adverse events, applying multidisciplinary approaches to emerging health issues, and managing population health across the care continuum.

Eligible applicants must be rural-based organizations in Oregon, specifically hospitals, RHCs, LPHDs, EMS agencies, or CBOs. Multiple submissions from a single organization are permitted, and up to five awards will be granted annually—one per organizational type. Applicants must submit a comprehensive narrative application through an online form by August 31 each year. The narrative must include a cover page, executive summary, background and relevance of the issue, project description, results, and optional lessons learned and supporting documents such as photos or graphs.

The evaluation process involves a panel of rural health experts who assess applications based on five core criteria: the significance of the health issue addressed, the extent of data use in the project’s planning and execution, promotion of a culture of safety, the results achieved, and the potential for the project’s model to be scaled or adapted elsewhere. Successful applications should clearly communicate measurable impacts and lessons learned that can benefit other organizations in rural settings.

Award recipients will be publicly acknowledged at the Annual Oregon Rural Health Conference held each fall in Central Oregon. The award serves as an opportunity to share successful practices and reinforce a statewide commitment to rural health improvement. The open date for application submissions is not specifically noted, but the annual deadline for submission is August 31. Contact information for different organization types is provided to help applicants with questions during the application process.

For Critical Access Hospitals, contact Stephanie Sayegh at sayegh@ohsu.edu. For Rural Health Clinics, contact Rondyann Gerst at gerst@ohsu.edu. For EMS agencies, contact Joan Field at fieldj@ohsu.edu. For LPHDs, contact Sarah Andersen at ansarah@ohsu.edu. For Community-Based Organizations, contact Stepha Dragoon at dragoon@ohsu.edu.