The Paramedic Foundation builds the systems that keep rural communities alive.

The Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP) is a federal rural health initiative enacted under P.L. 119-21 in July 2025 with $50 billion authorized over five fiscal years (FY2026–FY2030). It supports rural health system redesign, including emergency medical services, community paramedicine, mobile integrated health, workforce development, and hospital sustainability. All 50 states received RHTP awards for FY2026, with state award processes beginning or underway. RHTP represents the largest federal investment in rural health infrastructure in U.S. history.

The Paramedic Foundation can serve on RHTP-funded work as a prime contractor, a prime applicant, a subrecipient, or a technical assistance, evaluation, curriculum, or implementation partner. TPF is prime contractor to the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Public Health, for RHTP community paramedicine work and regional EMS technical assistance. TPF’s founding principals have worked together in rural EMS consulting and policy since 2005, including multi-year prime contracts with state offices in Ohio, Nebraska, and Alaska. Work under RHTP includes EMS system design and evaluation, community paramedicine and mobile integrated health program development, CMS outcome reporting infrastructure, financial sustainability planning, and workforce development. Initial consultations are free.

Community paramedicine is a model in which specially trained paramedics provide non-emergency care outside the traditional 911-response context. This includes chronic disease management, post-discharge follow-up, behavioral health navigation, medication reconciliation, preventive health visits, and social determinants of health screening. Unlike standard EMS, which is structured around emergency response and hospital transport, community paramedicine focuses on keeping people out of the emergency department by delivering appropriate care in the home or community setting. Published studies show emergency department visit reductions of 34 to 60 percent and documented cost savings in multiple jurisdictions.

An ambulance desert is a geographic area where residents face response times of 25 minutes or more for emergency ambulance service, or where no ground ambulance service operates at all. Research by TPF principal Dr. Yvonne Jonk and colleagues, published in Health Affairs and cited by CBS News, PBS NewsHour, and the Commonwealth Fund, estimates that approximately 4.5 million Americans live in ambulance deserts. Ambulance deserts result from a combination of low call volume, large coverage geography, inadequate reimbursement, and an EMS funding model that pays per transport rather than for readiness.

Engagements are scoped to the specific work and system at hand, and costs vary accordingly. Initial consultations are always free and without obligation. TPF is a Minnesota nonprofit corporation and a tax-exempt charity under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Consulting fees are structured to support the mission, not to generate profit. If TPF is not the right fit for what you are working on, TPF says so directly. Reach out through the contact page to start a conversation.

TPF organizes its work into five service pillars for readers and eight service areas for contracting. The eight service areas are EMS Policy and Governance; Regional System Design and Standards of Cover; Workforce Development; Community Paramedicine and TIP/TAD; Medicaid and Payer Alignment; Financial Management and Board Governance; Federal Grant and CMS Program Support; and Data, Performance, and Evaluation. The five pillars are rural health systems, governance and policy; innovative care models; workforce, education and professionalization; austere and operational medicine; and data, evaluation and applied research. The capabilities page maps each service area to its pillar and names the practitioners who anchor it.

TPF posts open positions on its careers page, with the full position description for each role. TPF engages people as employees, as officers, and as independent contractors under its standard Consultant Agreement, and is building a global bench of subject matter experts alongside its staff roles. Subject matter experts can receive work through TPF or bring their own projects under its operational umbrella, which includes liability coverage, financial administration, and legal review of contracts and deliverables.

Yes. TPF holds a national cooperative contract for Consulting Services under PSAI RFB 2026-03 (Electronics, IT Solutions and Consulting Services), available to public agencies nationwide through Public Safety Association Inc. (PSAI) and Savvik Buying Group. A registered Participating Public Agency can procure under the Master Agreement’s established terms and pricing rather than running its own competitive solicitation, subject to its own state and local procurement law. TPF also contracts directly with state agencies, counties, regional bodies, and hospital systems. The about page has the cooperative contract detail.