Alaska adds $16.8 million in rural health awards without naming who gets the money

The Alaska Department of Health said Friday it intends to send $16.8 million to 24 rural health projects. It did not say which ones. The awards bring the state's first-year total under the federal Rural Health Transformation Program to nearly $182 million.

Alaska organizations asked for roughly $2.5 billion this cycle against $272.2 million the federal government made available — about nine dollars requested for every one on hand. The department took in nearly 1,800 letters of interest, invited 403 groups to file full applications and gave preliminary approval to 28 for planning money.

The department's running project list shows what the funded work looks like. Alaska Behavioral Health drew $593,100 for a hydroponic growing operation used in therapy. Chugachmiut drew $627,200 to put portable digital X-ray machines in five rural clinics. Across the program, the money is going toward training health workers, technology that extends specialty and emergency care into rural communities, and behavioral health, maternal and child health and complex care.

Everything has to be spent by June 30, 2027. Sen. Forrest Dunbar has said the program's "strict guidelines and accelerated timeframe" limit how much of Alaska's health system it can actually change.

A notice of intent is not money in hand. Final amounts can shift during budget review, and each project has to execute a grant agreement with the department and the Alaska Community Foundation, which administers the grants. Roughly $90 million of the first-year award remains unspoken for, and the department says more announcements are coming.