OSU rural healthcare advocate Stacie Pace recognized with prestigious national award
Tuesday, May 28, 2019
Stacie Pace, director of Oklahoma State University’s Rural Health Network (ROK-Net) and executive director of the Rural Health Network of Oklahoma (RHN), has been recognized as the 2019 National Cooperative of Health Network Outstanding Network Leader. Both programs operate under the OSU Center for Health Systems Innovation (CHSI), which is a joint venture between the Spears School of Business and the Center for Health Sciences.
Pace was honored recently in San Diego for the development and growth of RHN and its contributions to rural health. The Outstanding Network Leader Award recognizes an individual for leadership in managing a successful health network.
“Stacie’s ability to quickly gain trust of rural providers and successfully recruit them to participate in our innovation development and testing has accelerated and shaped our impact on rural Oklahoma,” said Dr. William Paiva, executive director of CHSI. “Stacie has brought together ROK-Net and RHN with CHSI and these assets execute their own great mission but also augment the work we do at CHSI.
“Given Stacie’s track record, her respect across the state and her ability to execute programs to benefit the network, region and state, I am proud that the National Cooperative of Health Network recognized her with this prestigious national award.”
Pace has led the RHN since 2010, positively impacting her community, region, state and nation. She has sustained the network through five grants totaling more than $3.8 million, as well as by creating and providing high quality, affordable IT services for network members. Sought by other network leaders from across the nation to advise them on longevity, active member participation and project management, she is a passionate rural provider advocate. She serves on several rural health boards, including the board for the Oklahoma health information exchange, MyHealthAccess.
In 2012, Pace established RHN and partnered RHN with the Center for Health Systems Innovation in 2017, an innovative partnership that expanded OSU’s rural health reach into community initiatives and instantly transformed RHN’s reach statewide. By also leading ROK-Net, launched in 2016, she is able to offer members of both networks the resources for clinical quality improvements and administrative solutions. Together these networks deliver both care coordination among local RHN and ROK-Net members, tele-health and rural operational solutions. These initiatives improve the access of rural Oklahomans to health care and help keep rural health systems financially viable.
Expanding RHN’s reach beyond its members, Pace recruited Remote Area Medical (RAM) of Tennessee to southeast Oklahoma in 2016 to provide a free medical, vision and dental clinic. She has hosted annual RAM events for three years and was the first to partner the RAM organization with the U.S. Public Health Service.
In 2018, she was awarded a citation of commendation from the Oklahoma State Legislature for her contribution to health care access for rural Oklahomans and Americans.
Visit the website to learn more about the OSU Center for Health Systems Innovation.
Contact: Marjorie Erdmann | Director, Center for Health Systems Innovation | 918-582-1972 | marjorie.erdmann@okstate.edu