[Federal Register: May 23, 2002 (Volume 67, Number 100)]
[Notices]               
[Page 36200-36202]
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr23my02-75]                         

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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Health Resources and Services Administration

 
Rural Access to Emergency Devices Grant Program

AGENCY: Health Resources and Services Administration, HHS.

ACTION: Notice of availability of funds.

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SUMMARY: The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) 
announces that approximately $12,500,000 will be available for fiscal 
year (FY) 2002 grants, technical assistance, and program evaluation for 
the purchase, placement and training in the use of automated external 
defibrillators (AEDs) and related activities in eligible rural areas. 
HRSA estimates that approximately 50 awards will be made to community 
partnerships, in collaboration with State Offices of Emergency Medical 
Services, for FY 2002. These grants will be awarded under the authority 
of Public Law 106-505, Title IV--Cardiac Arrest Survival, Subtitle B--
Rural Access to Emergency Devices, 42 U.S.C. 254c note. The Office of 
Rural Health Policy will administer the Rural Access to Emergency 
Devices Grant Program.

DATES: All applicants interested in applying for funding under this 
program are to fax or mail a letter of intent to the Office of Rural 
Health Policy by May 27, 2002, at fax number (301) 443-2803. A copy of 
this letter of intent must also be faxed or mailed to the State Office 
of Emergency Medical Services by this same date. The letter of intent 
need only include the lead applicant's organizational name, proposed 
number of AEDs requested and a proposed listing of those in their 
community partnership. The deadline for receipt of applications is July 
15, 2002. Applications will be considered on time if they are either 
received on or before the deadline date in the HRSA Grants Application 
Center or postmarked on or before the deadline date. Any changes to the 
aforementioned dates will be posted on the Office of Rural Health 
Policy homepage at http://www.ruralhealth.hrsa.gov.

ADDRESSES: To receive an application kit, applicants may telephone the 
HRSA Grants Application Center at (877) 477-2123 (877-HRSA-123) or the 
application forms can be downloaded via the Web at http://
www.ruralhealth.hrsa.gov/funding.htm. The instructions for preparing 
the applications will be included with the grant guidance as part of 
the grant application kit. The Rural Access to Emergency Devices Grant 
Program uses PHS Forms 424 and 5161 for applications. Applicants must 
use the formal title ``Rural Access to Emergency Devices Grant 
Program'' and CFDA number 93.259 when requesting applications. The CFDA 
is a Government-wide compendium of enumerated Federal programs, 
projects services, and activities that provide assistance. All 
applications must be mailed or delivered to the Grants Management 
Officer, Office of Rural Health: HRSA Grants Application Center, 901 
Russell Avenue, Suite 450, Gaithersburg, MD 20879: telephone (877) 477-
2123. This notice will appear in the Federal Register at http://
www.gpo.gov/su--docs/aces/aces140.html and the Office of Rural Health 
Policy homepage at http://www.ruralhealth.hrsa.gov/.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Evan Mayfield, Office of Rural Health 
Policy, HRSA, Room 9A-55, Parklawn Building, 5600 Fishers Lane, 
Rockville, MD 20857, or email address ruralaed@hrsa.gov, telephone 
number

[[Page 36201]]

(301) 443-0835 and fax number (301) 443-2803.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

(1) Program Background and Objectives

    Rural Access to Emergency Devices Act, 42 U.S.C. 254c note, 
authorizes grants to community partnerships to provide for the 
purchase, placement, and training in the use of automated external 
defibrillators (AEDs) and related activities in eligible rural areas. 
An applicant must be a multi-county, regional or Statewide consortium 
of rural community organizations applying as a community partnership. 
Each community partnership must have a designated lead applicant to 
apply as the grantee of record and act as a fiscal agent for the 
partnership. Funding preference \1\ will be granted to applications 
that are Statewide in scope. Additional funding priority \2\ will be 
given to Statewide community partnerships that identify their State 
Office of Emergency Medical Services as the lead applicant and/or 
include emergency first response entities (e.g., EMS, law enforcement 
and fire departments) that are currently operating without AEDs. In 
order to qualify as a Statewide community partnership, not every 
eligible county within a State need apply but must have a State Office 
as the lead applicant. Selected locations around the State should be 
identified by the lead applicant to achieve fair geographical, 
organizational (e.g., first response verses public access placement) 
and resource allocation.
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    \1\ (Preference) moves those approved applicants carrying the 
preference ahead of approved applicants without the preference.
    \2\ (Priority) gives an application additional points during the 
scoring process of approved applications.
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    The State Office of Emergency Medical Services is a logical lead 
applicant to disseminate funding to individual entities within the 
partnership given their statutory role in medical direction and 
regulation. Other State Offices eligible to accept these Federal grant 
funds include the State Office of Rural Health or a division within the 
Department of Health. The State Office of Rural Health is a valuable 
resource for consulting in public access AED placement for those areas 
that lack EMS services, or are located too far away to be of practical 
benefit to a community. Community partnerships that apply without their 
State Office of Emergency Medical Services as the lead applicant must 
work with the State Office of Emergency Medical Services on issues 
related to medical direction and integration and placement of AEDs into 
existing EMS systems.

(2) Eligible Applicants

    Applicants must apply in the form of a community partnership. 
Interested eligible entities are encouraged to collaborate with a wide 
range of other providers in developing a broad-based consortium that 
will make up their community partnerships. These partnerships will 
include local first response entities (e.g., EMS, law enforcement and 
fire departments). In addition, local for- and non-profit entities may 
be included (that have a demonstrated concern about cardiac arrest 
survival rates) such as, but are not limited to, community hospitals or 
clinics, nursing homes and senior citizen day care facilities, 
governmental facilities, athletic facilities, faith based organizations 
and schools.
    All services provided by the community partnership must be provided 
in an eligible rural county or Rural-Urban Commuting Area zip code. All 
State Offices, acting on behalf of the community partnerships within 
their State, will be required to demonstrate how its services will be 
directed to the eligible rural areas. A complete listing of these 
eligible rural areas is available on the Web. Eligible rural counties 
can be found at (http://www.ruralhealth.hrsa.gov/ruralcoI.htm) and 
Rural-Urban Commuting Area zip codes can be found at (http://
www.ruralhealth.hrsa.gov/ruralcoZIPII.htm). Each is sorted by State.

(3) Review Criteria

    The HRSA Grants Application Center will screen applications for 
completeness and responsiveness to the program guidance. Applications 
that are complete and responsive to the guidance will be evaluated for 
technical merit by a peer review group convened specifically for this 
solicitation and in accordance with HRSA grants management policies and 
procedures. As part of the initial merit review, all applications will 
receive a written critique. Applications recommended for funding will 
be discussed fully by the ad hoc peer review group and assigned a 
priority score for funding. Technical merit will be assessed using the 
following criteria:
    (a) Need for AED equipment and training with documentation using 
any local standard enumerating average response \3\ and transport times 
(noting mileage to stabilizing and/or definitive care) for the response 
area and cardiovascular mortality prevalence rates;
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    \3\ If there are no pre-existing records of response times, a 
plan on how these times will be recorded must be included.
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    (b) Plan for a need-based placement of AEDs and accessibility plan 
to those AEDs;
    (c) Estimated AED purchasing, training, and maintenance costs 
(include maintenance schedule);
    (d) How the grant award will be distributed within the community 
partnership, with identified names of who will receive funding for each 
entity within the partnership;
    (e) An identified and approved CPR and AED training entity;
    (f) Who will use the AEDs, and reference State laws regulating AED 
usage;
    (g) Integration into local EMS systems ensuring medical direction 
for documented protocols of care and legal oversight; and
    (h) A well-defined data collection and reporting mechanism via 
their State Office of Emergency Medical Services or the State Office of 
Rural Health should the former be unable to participate.
    A further explanation of these criteria will be included in the 
grant guidance.

Paperwork Reduction Act

    The application for the Rural Access to Emergency Devices Grant 
Program has been approved by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) 
under the Paperwork Reduction Act. The OMB clearance number is 0920-
0428.

Public Health System Impact Statement

    This program is subject to the Public Health System Reporting 
Requirements (approved under OMB No. 0937-0195). Under these 
requirements, the community-based non-governmental applicant must 
prepare and submit a Public Health System Impact Statement (PHSIS). The 
PHSIS is intended to provide information to State and local health 
officials to keep them apprized of proposed health services grant 
applications submitted by community-based organizations within their 
jurisdictions.
    Community-based non-governmental applicants are required to submit 
the following information to their State Office of Emergency Medical 
Services no later than the Federal application receipt due date of July 
15, 2002:
    (a) A copy of the face page of the application (SF 424)
    (b) An abstract of the project not to exceed one page, which 
provides:
    (1) A description of the population to be served,
    (2) The proposed number of AEDs to be purchased and how many people

[[Page 36202]]

will be trained within the community partnership,
    (3) A description of the coordination planned with the appropriate 
State agencies (ranging from required notification of AED placement to 
such agency agreeing to being the lead applicant and/or fiscal agent of 
a Statewide community partnership should they choose to).

Executive Order 12372

    This grant program is subject to the provisions of Executive Order 
12372 concerning intergovernmental review of Federal programs by 
appropriate State and local officials as implemented by 45 CFR part 
100. Executive Order 12372 allows States the option of setting up a 
system for reviewing applications from within their States for 
assistance under certain Federal programs. Applicants (other than 
Federally-recognized Indian tribal governments) should contact their 
State Single Point of Contact (SPOC), a list of which will be included 
in the application kit, as early as possible to alert them to the 
prospective applications and receive any necessary instructions on the 
State process. All SPOC recommendations should be submitted to Larry 
Poole, Office of Grants Management, Bureau of Primary Health Care, 4350 
East West Highway, 11th Floor, Bethesda, Maryland 20814, (301) 594-
4260. The due date for State process recommendations is 60 days after 
the application deadline of July 15, 2002, for competing applications 
for the Rural Access to Emergency Devices Grant Program. The granting 
agency does not guarantee to ``accommodate or explain'' State process 
recommendations it receives after that date. See part 148 of the PHS 
Grants Administration Manual, Intergovernmental Review of PHS Programs 
under Executive Order 12372, and 45 CFR part 100 for a description of 
the review process and requirements.

    Dated: May 12, 2002.
Elizabeth M. Duke,
Administrator.
[FR Doc. 02-12481 Filed 5-16-02; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4165-15-P