Rural Wisconsin Health Cooperative

The cooperative is one of the earliest and most successful models for collaboration among health providers in the country. RWHC Vision is that their communities are the healthiest in America and RWHC's Mission is to be a strong and innovative cooperative of diversified rural hospital and clinics. Incorporated in 1979, the Rural Wisconsin Health Cooperative provides a wide range of programs and services to members and non-members alike, including:

• Advocacy
• Education
• Rural Population Health
• Rural Economic Development
• Professional roundtables
• Financial consulting Legal services
• Coding consultation
• Quality programs Workforce development
• Electronic medical records
• Health information technology
• Various clinical services

Increasingly, the Rural Wisconsin Health Cooperative looks for opportunities to address the multiple determinants of health beyond medical care.

Rural Wisconsin Health Cooperative's executive director, Tim Size, serves as a preceptor for the MPH Program. He has been an honorary associate of the UW School of Medicine and Public Health's Department of Population Health Sciences since 1990 and received an Honorary Doctorate in the Humanities in 2014 from the Medical College of Wisconsin. He continues as an original advisory board member of UW Madison’s Population Health Institute, Wisconsin Healthy Community Designation initiative and the Center for Aging, Research and Education.

Having participated for three years in the Kellogg National Fellowship Program, he has extensive experience what makes for a mutually rewarding preceptor process.

Note: Travel to Sauk City not required; preceptorship meetings in Madison can be easily arranged. RWHC Cooperative pledges to design a mutually beneficial experience.

Project opportunities

The Rural Wisconsin Health Cooperative is open to design a mutually beneficial experience working directly with the cooperative's executive director. There are opportunities to work with the executive director as he collaborates with other statewide organizations in multiple areas, including promoting community wellness and public health workforce development. Additional Opportunities include:

• Investigation of policies that encouraged collaboration to improve population health in rural communities
• Evaluation of workplace wellness resources available to small employers
• Improving childhood immunization rates and improving breast feeding rates