Nebraska Models and Innovations

These stories feature model programs and successful rural projects that can serve as a source of ideas. Some of the projects or programs may no longer be active. Read about the criteria and evidence-base for programs included.

Effective Examples

Farm Dinner Theater

Updated/reviewed August 2022

• Need: To encourage farmers to make health and safety changes on their farms.
• Intervention: Farm Dinner Theater is an event in which farmers and their families watch three 10-minute plays covering health and safety topics and then discuss solutions to the issues addressed in each.
• Results: In a study, farmers who attended the plays were more likely to make changes and tell others what they learned, compared to farmers who received an educational packet with the same information.

Promising Examples

SD eResidential Facilities Healthcare Services Access Project

Updated/reviewed August 2020

• Need: To increase local health services to rural elderly populations in long-term care facilities located in four Midwest states near a tertiary care organization.
• Intervention: A non-profit healthcare organization implemented telehealth services to provide acute care evaluations for long-term residents in their home facilities.
• Results: The program increased local care as evidenced by improved year-over-year provider-determined available transfer data: 33%, 50%, 63% program years 1 through 3, respectively. From the success of the initial pilot implementation, the program has further matured into a long-term care offering that now reaches many other rural facilities located in 10 states across the nation.

Other Project Examples

Jana's Campaign: Secondary Education Prevention Programming

Updated/reviewed March 2024

• Need: To reduce teen dating violence in middle schools, high schools, and youth organizations by promoting healthy relationship behaviors and fostering a culture of respect among adolescents.
• Intervention: Jana's Campaign offers prevention programs, including curricular and co-curricular activities, to highlight the 'red flags' and underlying causes of unhealthy dating relationships.
• Results: Since 2013, 661 middle and high schools and more than 92,673 students in Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, Oregon, Montana, and Washington State have benefited from these programs.

Catalysts for Community Health

Updated/reviewed June 2023

• Need: To increase access to health information in low-income and rural communities throughout the Midwest.
• Intervention: The University of Missouri School of Information Science & Learning Technologies developed Catalysts for Community Health (C4CH), an interdisciplinary program designed to train Master of Library and Information Science students to expand health information resources for underserved communities.
• Results: The cohort of 10 students graduated in summer of 2022.

Frontier Area Rural Mental Health Camp and Mentorship Program (FARM CAMP)

Updated/reviewed September 2022

• Need: To reduce the shortage of behavioral health professionals in rural Nebraska.
• Intervention: A week-long camp teaches high school students in rural and tribal communities about different career options in behavioral health and provides mentorship after the camp ends.
• Results: In 2022, 10 high school students participated in the camp, and a former camper returned to present on their work in a psychology lab at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Boone County Health Center Pulmonary Rehabilitation Program

Updated/reviewed June 2022

• Need: Evidenced-based intervention to improve function and quality of life for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other chronic lower respiratory conditions.
• Intervention: Pulmonary rehabilitation program implementation in 1989.
• Results: Compared to a national average of only about 3% of referred Medicare beneficiaries actually enrolling in pulmonary rehabilitation, 60% of the program's referred patients enroll. Averaging around 15 patients/year completing the program, a large combined cardiac and pulmonary rehabilitation maintenance population averages 8,000 visits/year.

Avera LIGHT

Updated/reviewed March 2021

• Need: Assistance for urban and rural physicians — as well as other healthcare providers — who are experiencing burnout and other issues associated with well-being.
• Intervention: As part of its provider well-being focus in its rural and urban facilities, Avera Health system has created a program which attends to physician wellness issues starting with recruitment with continued support through retirement.
• Results: With increasing engagement due to word of mouth, the program creates a culture of wellness where stigma is decreased and providers are encouraged to be proactive in reaching out for assistance for issues related to their personal and professional well-being.