Joyce Hospodar, MPA, MBA, has worked as the senior program coordinator of the Medicare Rural Hospital Flexibility Flex) Program since 2001. She is responsible for providing technical assistance in gathering, organizing and presenting required data for rural Arizona hospitals seeking federal designation as a Medicare Critical Access Hospital CAH) under the Flex program. Hospodar works on two U.S. Department of Health and Human Services HRSA) grants, including the Rural Hospital Flexibility Flex) Grant, a roughly 500,000 grant that has been awarded to the Rural Health Officeat The University of Arizona Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health every year since 1999. The grant enables the Rural Health Office to assist 14 small rural hospitals in Arizona, which are designated as Critical Access Hospitals. The funds go toward supporting the planning and implementation of health information technology among these hospitals, providing opportunities to enhance the performance improvement of the hospitals, training opportunities for CAH personnel, and improving the emergency medical services EMS) systems in selected critical access geographic areas. Hospodar has worked in getting eligible hospitals the CAH designation. Once they are designated, she assists hospitals in projects and tasks that include writing grant proposals, helping with strategic planning for the Critical Access Hospitals and building connections between the hospitals and related organizations in the community. The purpose of this work is to build sustainability for the Critical Access Hospitals, enhance their services and bring better medical care to patients and community, Hospodar said. “We want to foster connectivity within communities and peers around the state and once the Critical Access Hospitals are sustainable, we’re looking to see how we can move forward from their sustainability,” Hospodar said. “What we’re doing is trying to build the infrastructure of these hospitals in rural communities where the hospital is usually the largest employer. If the hospital closes, communities cannot easily draw businesses if they don’t have health care. If the communities want to grow, health care has to be there. It’s critical for these frontier rural communities.” Recently, the Rural Health Office received a 5 year W.K. Kellogg Foundation grant called Rural People, Rural Policy Initiative. The effort involves energizing and equipping rural organizations and networks to shape policy that will improve the vitality of rural communities and the lives of their residents. Hospodar serves as the Principal Investigator for this grant. Hospodar has more than 30 years of experience in the health care field focusing on strategic planning, marketing, and operations of community-based programs, including efforts that supported the development of new business strategies, improvement of existing programs, and solicitation of external funds for program enhancement/continuation. She has worked for the Carondelet Health Network in Tucson, the Jewish Hospital Health Network in Louisville, Ky. and HCA St. Mark’s Hospital in Salt Lake City. Hospodar received an MPA in Health Services Administration from The University of Arizona, an MBA in Global Management from The University of Phoenix, and a bachelor’s degree in distributive sciences from The American University in Washington, DC.