North Dakota has announced more than $20 million in new grant opportunities under the federal Rural Health Transformation Program to address workforce education gaps, expand mental health services, and fill rural healthcare service gaps. Application deadlines are approaching quickly, with several submission dates in May.
Two workforce-related grants have the most imminent deadlines of May 15. One grant sets aside about $3 million to support supervised training opportunities for healthcare students at facilities across the state, with anticipated awards of about $200,000 each. Funds can be used to create new rotation positions at clinics and hospitals and to subsidize student housing. A second workforce grant supports “train in place” programs for current healthcare workers seeking further education, with roughly $135,000 awards expected. Funding can support local evening or weekend training, virtual opportunities, and incentives for employee participation.
The state is also accepting applications through May 29 for $15 million in rural healthcare safety net services funding, with approximately 50 awards of $300,000 expected. Money may support mobile clinics, telehealth equipment, and behavioral health crisis response services. An additional $1.6 million has been allocated for community substance abuse prevention, suicide prevention, and other mental health programs, with 10 grants of $160,000 anticipated, also due May 29.
The Department of Health and Human Services made $2.31 million available to help rural health care centers and critical access hospitals improve operations, with 42 awards of roughly $40,000 expected. Critical access hospitals can apply for an additional $42,000 award for a financial and operational performance analysis tool. Applications for this grant are due May 22.
North Dakota has been authorized for $199 million for the first year of the Rural Health Transformation Program, a $50 billion federal initiative created by Congress. The state must commit the funds by the end of October and spend them within the following year.
This article is an AI-assisted summary. All facts and figures are drawn from the original report: https://www.kvrr.com/2026/05/05/additional-20-million-in-federal-rural-health-grants-announced-for-north-dakota/