Maniilaq to put portable X-ray units in Northwest Arctic village clinics

Maniilaq Association will place portable X-ray units in Northwest Arctic village clinics with a $218,964 federal grant. Community health aides, working with hospital providers by telehealth, could then get images on site and decide sooner whether a patient needs an emergency medical evacuation.

The Alaska Department of Health highlighted the project Thursday as it closed out the first year of the Rural Health Transformation Program. The program is part of a $50 billion, five-year national initiative Congress authorized in 2025 to strengthen rural health systems. The state issued its final first-year award notices Oct. 9.

The state's award notice says the Maniilaq project aims to cut air travel for diagnostic imaging, speed treatment decisions and support telehealth-assisted evacuation calls. Maniilaq runs the Maniilaq Health Center in Kotzebue, which offers routine X-rays, ultrasound, mammography and CT scans, and serves 11 outlying village communities.

At an April 23 Alaska House Energy Committee hearing, the head of Kotzebue's electric utility testified that people in the region's 11 other villages must fly to Kotzebue before going on to Anchorage for medical appointments. He said rising fuel prices could make those tickets too expensive for some.

The Maniilaq award, dated Aug. 21, falls under the program's Health Care Access initiative. The department said it has awarded just under $249 million to 254 projects in the first year, out of more than $272 million the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services awarded Alaska. Nearly 1,800 letters of interest came in, and requests reached $2.5 billion, Alaska News reported Sept. 14. First-year funds must be spent by Sept. 30, 2027.

Chugachmiut got a similar $627,180 award for portable digital X-ray services in five rural Chugach Region clinics. Its project summary says patients there now travel long distances for basic imaging, which delays diagnosis and treatment. An earlier Alaska News article reported that health aides in those five villages work without an X-ray.

"Now, we have an opportunity to build on that foundation, strengthen access to care and shape a system that better serves every Alaskan, no matter where they live," Health Commissioner Heidi Hedberg said in a release Thursday.

The department plans to publish a dashboard of all first-year projects by the end of the year. Applications for the next funding cycle are due Wednesday, Oct. 28, with results as early as December.