BATON ROUGE — The Trump Administration announced over $37 million in Rural Health Transformation Program funding on Friday to help strengthen the rural healthcare workforce across Louisiana. 

The $37.7 million in funding will be used to build up the state's rural healthcare workforce through education, training, and recruitment and retention initiatives, including up to $20 million to connect the state's public universities and community and technical colleges with rural healthcare providers. 

The funding also includes $12.7 million to help 53 rural providers recruit and retain physicians, nurses, dentists, EMS personnel, behavioral health professionals, and other clinicians through various incentives including sign-on and retention bonuses, relocation assistance and professional training. 

An additional $5 million will be used to create healthcare career pathways across 39 campuses, helping high school students begin healthcare coursework, preparing participants to enter the workforce and aiding current healthcare workers to advance their credentials. 

“Rural Louisiana deserves access to quality healthcare, and that starts with making sure we have the doctors, nurses and healthcare professionals to serve our communities," said Gov. Jeff Landry. "This investment will help train the next generation of healthcare workers, recruit more professionals to rural Louisiana and keep them here."

Other initiatives aided by the funding include advancing innovative care and payment models and modernizing rural healthcare technology.