Fairfax, VA – July 6, 2023 – Customer Value Partners (CVP), an award-winning healthcare and next-gen technology consulting firm, has secured a four-year prime, unrestricted $20M cooperative agreement in support of the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Federal Office of Rural Health Policy (FORHP) to conduct a 4-year evaluation of their Rural Communities Opioid Response Program (RCORP).
FORHP, charged with the coordination of activities related to rural health care within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), is responsible for analyzing potential policy impacts on 65 million rural community residents andproviding state and local grant funding to increase access to high quality health care. RCORP is a multi-year initiative that addresses barriers to treatment for substance use disorder (SUD)—including opioid use disorder (OUD)—with the goal of reducing opioid overdoses and deaths and improving behavioral health outcomes in rural populations.
Currently, 130+ people die each day from opioid-related overdoses across the country, resulting in devastating losses for families and communities. With the rate of deaths in rural counties a full 31% higher than urban counties, RCORP is a critical piece of the national effort to make real impact in areas where the opioid epidemic is compounded by barriers to treatment and prevention and limited access to care.
“It’s an honor for CVP to support HRSA/FORHP in this critical work to address the opioid epidemic and behavioral health challenges in rural America,” says Lisa Patton, CVP’s Vice President of Healthcare Research & Technology. “Our team is dedicated to doing our part to curb the devastating impact of OUD on underserved and under-resourced communities, enabling them to better plan for and respond to ongoing and emerging challenges. This work will help pave the way for sustainable, long-term program success and technical assistance delivery.”
CVP’s multidisciplinary team comprised of experts in rural health, behavioral health research, qualitative and quantitative methods, and health equities—including partners Abt Associates, The Steadman Group, and Racial Equity Partners—will conduct a mixed-methods evaluation of the program. This evaluation will examine impact, delivery, and implementation of evidence-based practices and services across 350 rural communities in 47 states, identifying methods that will ensure these vital programs remain operational beyond the life of the funding.
“CVP’s acquisition of Atlas Research in 2021 was a critical element in our roadmap to build a one-of-a-kind, integrated healthcare solutions firm solving critical problems in health, safety, and equity,” says CVP CEO Anirudh Kulkarni. “Winning this important work validates our vision: that by combining deep expertise in health research and evaluation with advanced capabilities in data and digital health enabled by CVP’s NextLabs technology accelerators—Hopper and Nightingale—we can bring government agencies like HRSA fully-integrated, innovative, and cost-effective solutions that have national impact.”
