Opportunity Overview
The Tennessee Rural Health Care Center of Excellence at UT Health Sciences is accepting Letters of Intent for its second cycle of Planning and Implementation Grants focused on Clinical Practice Transformation in rural Tennessee. The Center was established through a $12 million Tennessee Department of Health award and states that it administers $7 million in planning and implementation grants across the initiative.
Priority Domains
Applicants must focus on clinical practice transformation through one or more of three domains:
- Operational Excellence, including capacity management, continuous quality improvement, workforce productivity, throughput optimization, and scheduling optimization.
- Technology Implementation, including EHR optimization, referral management, analytics platform implementation, clinical workflow automation and optimization, and interoperability or health information exchange support.
- Shared Services, Regional Transformation and Integration, including shared services innovation, duplication reduction, enhanced specialty access, and financially sustainable regional approaches.
LOI Requirements
The published LOI template requires organization and contact information, project title, grant type, a rural clinical practice transformation narrative of up to 500 words, objectives and anticipated outcomes of up to 250 words, proposed partners of up to 50 words, an estimated budget range, an organizational rural health practice transformation history statement of up to 250 words, and a biosketch of the primary applicant.
Scoring
Published scoring factors include impact on rural access and transformation of the operating model, project feasibility, outcomes assessment and evaluation, regional collaboration or partnerships, sustainability, and estimated total cost.
Funding
The Center’s current second-cycle announcement states that $1.75 million is available to distribute in grant funding for providers or organizations that best meet the grant criteria. The public RFP page still does not publish a per-applicant minimum, maximum, award range, or match/cost-share requirement, so Atlas will not infer an applicant-level ceiling or match rule.
Deadline Control
The dedicated Request for Proposal page states an LOI deadline of September 28, 2026 and instructs applicants to submit the LOI PDF through the InfoReady portal. The Center homepage has now been updated to the same September 8 through September 28, 2026 application window, resolving the prior date discrepancy. Neither official page publishes an exact closing clock time or time zone for the LOI, so Atlas will not authorize cold outreach until those submission controls are verified.
N9+ and QC Healthcare Relevance
N9+ Fit Score: 76/100, conditional. The technology implementation and enhanced specialty access domains create a plausible role for the Nonagon N9+ device and platform within a broader rural clinical workflow transformation project, but the call does not specifically name telehealth, remote physical examination hardware, or device purchases as allowable costs. Any N9+ role must therefore remain applicant-led and project-specific until the Center confirms allowability.
QC Healthcare relevance: moderate to strong for implementation support. Practice optimization, workflow redesign, implementation, interoperability, and specialty-access transformation are within the type of work described by the call, but no direct-vendor eligibility is established.
Atlas Classification
Atlas Opportunity Score: 94/100. This is a strategically strong rural Tennessee practice-transformation opportunity with explicit technology and operating-model domains. Classification is applicant or partner led, not a Dr. Miltie direct submission.
Submission and Contacts
The dedicated RFP page directs applicants to submit a completed LOI PDF through the InfoReady portal using the subject line format [Planning/Implementation Grant LOI – Organization Name]. Questions are directed to Ashley Harkrider at 865-974-1810 and Doug Dixon at 901-448-6920 through the contact emails published on the Center’s RFP page.
Required Next Action
Verify the exact InfoReady closing time and time zone, second-cycle applicant eligibility, award limits, match or cost-share requirements, eligible and ineligible costs, full application stages, and vendor or partner rules before any applicant outreach or N9+ representation. The Center homepage and dedicated RFP page now both state September 28, 2026.