In 2015, the FTA launched its Rides to Wellness initiative, a key piece of the agency's implementation of the administration's Ladders of Opportunity. Through Rides to Wellness, the FTA invested in new partnerships and innovative transportation strategies, with the goal of ensuring more Americans have access to health care destinations. Public transportation can be an important enabler of access to these services, leading to more individuals reaching life-sustaining and preventive health care services.
Learn more below about the initiative in this 2-page summary of this FTA Rides to Wellness program. Rides to Wellness is implemented through a three-prong approach:
- 2015 Rides to Wellness Summit. A March 11, 2015 summit with over 60 representatives from transit, health care organizations, insurance companies, and related organizations.
- 2015 Healthcare Mobility Access Design Challenge grants. Grants given to 16 communities across the country to create, using a human-center design process, and test innovative transportation solutions to health care destinations. NCMM is facilitating the teams through this process,and will share the results of the communities' work in early 2016.
- 2016 FAST Act Innovative Coordinated Access and Mobility Grants These grants, Rides to Wellness Demonstration and Innovative Coordinated Access and Mobility Grants, which will help connect people to much-needed healthcare services through improved access to public transportation. Grants to 19 projects in 16 states will build partnerships between health, transportation and other service providers to address the problem of how to get people without vehicles to doctors and wellness appointments to help them maintain good health.
- Working with the FTA, the NCMM will gather and disseminate promising practices in health care transportation. Visit NCMM's Health Care and Transportation resource page for a variety of useful tools, studies and practices.