At the end of 2025, all 50 U.S. states received the first installment of the Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP) funding, a five-year, $50 billion federal initiative supporting rural health care delivery. For the Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 funding, which totaled to $10 billion for all 50 states, $4.12 billion was awarded to the 20 heartland states, including $209 million for Arkansas.
The Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration (DFA) is leading RHTP implementation in the state and has taken a nuanced approach to build public awareness of the program through a multi-stop roadshow series to raise awareness, build stakeholder buy-in and identify opportunities for local organizations to align their implementation projects with the state’s strategic initiatives.
The inaugural event, which took place late February 2026 in Bentonville and was hosted in partnership with Heartland Forward, aimed to introduce Arkansas’s RHTP priorities and invite Arkansan health care and community leaders to learn more about the state’s implementation plan.
As of late February 2026, efforts to implement Arkansas’ FY2026 funding are already underway. Arkansas’ Rural Health Transformation Plan includes ambitious and creative ideas to strengthen rural health care delivery across the state, with the primary goal of fostering health care collaboration. To translate this collaborative outlook into local strategy, the state-led roadshow serves a dual purpose: first, to inform communities about the state’s priority initiatives, and second, to share information about how funding will be disbursed to state and local entities. By bringing together a wide variety of stakeholders, the DFA is encouraging organizations and health care systems to connect and collaborate on similar components of care to create a more efficient and unified network of care providers.
Among those leading Arkansas’ RHTP implementation are Jim Hudson, Secretary of the Arkansas DFA and Chief Financial Officer for the State of Arkansas, and Brad Nye, the inaugural Director of Rural Health Transformation for Arkansas. Secretary Hudson and Nye detailed Arkansas’ plan to roll out RHTP funding, categorized under four initiatives:
- Healthy Eating, Active Recreation and Transformation (HEART) targets improved nutrition, increased physical activity and chronic disease prevention.
- Promoting Access Coordination and Transformation (PACT) focuses on increasing access to maternal, behavioral and specialty care through mobile units, telehealth and clinically integrated networks that improve data sharing and regional collaboration.
- Recruitment Innovation Skills and Education for Arkansas (RISE AR) centers on strengthening the health care workforce through training programs, incentives and retention strategies.
- Telehealth Health Monitoring and Response Innovation for Vital Expansion (THRIVE) leverages technology and artificial intelligence to coordinate care, telehealth and remote monitoring, with the intention of modernizing rural health care delivery.
The $209 million award is designed to flow through the state to local sub-recipients—including rural hospitals and clinics, nonprofits, universities and emergency services providers—who were encouraged to apply for funding aligned with the four statewide strategic initiatives. Secretary Hudson and Nye noted that the long-term goal of constructing a self-sustaining health care ecosystem, centered on public-private collaboration, will be built upon programs that have demonstrated return-on-investment after the five-year funding period.
To sustainably achieve this outlook, Secretary Hudson identified collaboration as the guiding principle of Arkansas’s RHTP implementation process, sharing “We all walk into rooms such as this one thinking about our organizational needs and the priorities we are working towards. I challenge myself and others to contrast that mode of operation by thinking about the partnerships we can develop together.”
This call to partnership and the question ‘who joins us in implementing this program’ will shape the collaborative redesign of rural health care delivery in Arkansas. With continued cooperation and purposeful effort to unite stakeholders across the state, led by the state government and community partners like Heartland Forward, Arkansas is taking critical steps toward a more effective, sustainable and healthy future. Heartland Forward supports this outlook through the Heartland Health Caucus, which reinforces maternal health, mental health and the health care workforce and aligns these regional focus areas with Arkansas’ four RHTP initiatives. Supported by partners and resources rooted in local communities, these roadshows provided a roadmap for sub-recipients to successfully apply for RHTP funding under the HEART, PACT, RISE AR and THRIVE pillars, ensuring Arkansas’ rural health transformation will be cohesive, effective and long-lasting.