Skills & Careers
Maryland is putting $16.4 million in federal rural health money toward training, recruiting and keeping health care workers in its rural counties, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced Monday, Oct. 19. The Maryland Department of Labor says the money went to 39 organizations this month through two state initiatives.
The funding comes from the Rural Health Transformation Program, a $50 billion national program that CMS says was created by the Working Families Tax Cuts Act. The $16.4 million is Maryland’s own figure, not a national total, and it is only one piece of the state’s larger first-year award. According to the state labor department, CMS awarded the Maryland Department of Health $168,180,837.61 for the program’s first budget period to strengthen health care in Maryland’s 18 state-designated rural areas. The Department of Health runs the program; the Department of Labor coordinates its workforce pieces.
Two tracks for entry-level roles
The first initiative, Pathways to Health Careers, is aimed at quickly training people for entry-level and peer-support jobs in allied health and community support. One track funds registered apprenticeships, which pay participants while they train on the job. The other, Rural Advancement for Maryland Peers, or RAMP, covers training and certification costs for occupations such as community health workers and certified peer recovery specialists.
The grants are mostly small. ItWorks Learning Center received $200,000 to offer no-cost certified nursing assistant training and certification in Harford, Cecil and Queen Anne’s counties. Wor-Wic Community College received $312,934 to set up an Eastern Shore center for apprenticeship pathways, with community health worker and sterile processing technician listed as target occupations. The Asian American Center of Frederick received $393,132 to develop and register dental assistant and phlebotomy technician apprenticeships through a new consortium serving Frederick and Washington counties, and Argentum received $400,000 to act as an intermediary for a registered apprenticeship initiative in assisted living.
Recruiting doctors, nurses and dentists
The second initiative, Rural Incentives for Strengthening Employment in Healthcare, or RISE, targets harder-to-fill professional jobs. One track supports training, recruitment and retention of registered nurses, physician assistants, physicians and dentists; the other funds career exploration for students and skill-building for current workers.
Awards in the advanced-provider track run up to $500,000 each. Choptank Community Health System received $500,000 for preceptor incentives and recruiting students who complete rotations at its sites in five Eastern Shore counties. University of Maryland Shore Regional Health received $499,898 to create a family medicine rural residency track on the Eastern Shore. In the student pipeline track, the University of Maryland Eastern Shore received $499,411 for a program to prepare students in grades 6 through 12 for health careers.
CMS’s release also described help with tuition, transportation and uniforms for dental assistant trainees.
Plans, not hires
Neither CMS nor the state reported how many people will be trained, certified or hired. The announcement describes funded plans and programs, not filled jobs, and CMS characterized the projects as ready for rapid deployment rather than already completed. The state’s program pages list the counties each grant is meant to serve, which include Allegany and Garrett in western Maryland and Dorchester, Somerset, Wicomico and Worcester on the Eastern Shore.
The awards apply to Maryland only. They are not a signal of comparable grants in Georgia or the Atlanta area, where any Rural Health Transformation spending would come through that state’s own award. The useful measures to watch will be enrollment, credential completion and how long trained workers stay in rural jobs.
Sources
- Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, “Trump Administration Announces More Than $16 Million for Rural Healthcare Workforce Training and Retention Across Maryland,” October 19, 2026. https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/press-releases/trump-administration-announces-more-16-million-rural-healthcare-workforce-training-retention-across
- Maryland Department of Labor, “Rural Health Transformation Program – Division of Workforce Development and Adult Learning,” accessed October 19, 2026. https://labor.maryland.gov/employment/wdrhtp.shtml
Featured photo: Wor-Wic Community College in Wicomico County, Maryland, seen from U.S. Route 50, Sept. 8, 2020. The college is one of 39 organizations receiving Rural Health Transformation Program workforce grants. Photo: AviationFreak, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). Cropped from the original.
