Montana Creates Emergency ‘Drive-Thru' Blood Pickup Service for Rural Ambulances

Saving 9 bridges the gaps between rural areas and emergency medical care by providing essential training to locals, transforming them into medical personnel. Saving 9 also has an ambulance that connects rural villages to medical facilities in the capital city and also offers a female-led ambulance service to provide culturally sensitive care to women in more conservative, rural communities. Since forming in 2017, Saving 9 has saved more than 900 lives.

In 2020, Nigeria's Rural Electrification Agency installed a 50-kilowatt solar-hybrid system at Gombe State Specialist Hospital, providing uninterrupted electricity to critical units, including the ICU and emergency departments. Since its installation, maternal mortality dropped from 15-20 deaths monthly to 1-2 per month, and neonatal deaths also decreased from 50 to 20-25 monthly. The system has also helped healthcare workers perform life-saving surgeries without interruption, as these surgeries were often delayed or impossible due to power outages.

The National Council for Mental Wellbeing's Mental Health First Aid for Rural Communities trains local residents to recognize mental health warning signs and provide critical support until professional help arrives. The program equips non-medical community members with skills to spot crises, have supportive conversations, and navigate people to appropriate resources. In central New York alone, more than 6,000 people have been trained across 10 rural counties, providing life-saving interventions, particularly in areas where emergency services are hard to access.

Eight Medical is a technology-driven emergency medical service that uses real-time communication systems to deliver ambulance services within 10 minutes or less. The service has 45 control center staff, over 400 field personnel, and over 25 ambulances, and operates under a “care now, pay later” scheme, making emergency healthcare more affordable. Since launching, it has received over 15,000 calls and saved about 8,000 lives by providing fast, life-saving care.

Morehouse School of Medicine is training local women to become doulas through its Perinatal Patient Navigators program. A dozen participants — all Black women — recently graduated from the program after five months of training, ready to provide care and support to other women of color in rural communities. Studies show the presence of a doula improves labor and delivery outcomes, reduces stress and results in fewer expensive childbirth interventions, like C-sections.

The Gender Diverse Care Coalition of New Hampshire works to expand access to gender-affirming care through free training, consultations with providers, education and advocacy work. The Coalition also has a website that offers a database of resources on gender-affirming care in the state and surrounding area. Through its offerings, the Coalition is working to increase the number of providers in the state who are comfortable and capable of providing care to transgender patients.

Raise Foundation provides transportation to hospitals for women in labor in rural, hard-to-reach areas that lack access to healthcare centers. Through its tricycle ambulance service, the organization has helped over 230 expectant mothers have a safe delivery.

Emergency medical services in rural Minnesota are dealing with staffing and funding shortages by creating new systems that allow them to work together to respond to calls and are more flexible with where volunteers need to be located.

The Umthombo Youth Development Foundation funds health education for students from poor, rural backgrounds. Upon graduation, these students are then more likely to practice medicine in the rural communities they call home, thus increasing access to care in those areas where it’s often scarce.

Dental therapists provide basic preventative dental care, filling cavities, placing crowns and extracting teeth under a dentist’s supervision. The occupation is growing as it fills gaps in access to dental care, making it easier for people to care for their oral health. Dental therapists are most common in rural, Native areas where access to care is scarce. In rural Alaska alone, more than 40,000 people now have regular access to dental care thanks to dental therapists.