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Holmes receives 2015 Outstanding Researcher Award from the National Rural Health Association

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 Originally published April 8, 2015 by the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health 

Mark Holmes, PhD

Mark Holmes, PhD

Mark Holmes, PhD, director of the Rural Health Research Program at UNC Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research and associate professor of health policy and management at the UNC-Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health, is the 2015 winner of the Outstanding Researcher Award from the National Rural Health Association (NRHA).

He will receive the award at the 38th annual Rural Health Conference in Philadelphia on Thursday, April 16.

“We’re especially proud of this year’s winners,” said Alan Morgan, NRHA CEO. “They have each already made tremendous strides to advance rural health care, and we’re confident they will continue to help improve the lives of rural Americans.”

Holmes’ award recognizes his leadership as director of the North Carolina Rural Health Research and Policy Analysis Center at UNC-Chapel Hill, an organization with a reputation for exceptional quality in rural health research.

He joins two other members of the health policy and management faculty — George H. Pink and Becky Slifkin, who will join the faculty in the fall of 2015 — as recipients of the award. UNC is the only institution with three awardees, reflecting its longstanding interest in rural health.

Holmes’ work on Medicare rural hospital reimbursement policy and the Critical Access Hospital Financial Indicator Report, produced by the Flex Monitoring Team, has also garnered national attention. In addition, Holmes has authored more than 50 published articles.

“I am lucky to work at the University of North Carolina, which places such a high priority on community engagement,” Holmes said. “The true value of our research is in how it shapes policy and practice to improve people’s lives, and this has been a historical focus at UNC, the Gillings School and the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research.”

The NRHA is a nonprofit organization that works to improve the health and well-being of rural Americans and provide leadership on rural health issues through advocacy, communication, education and research. NRHA membership is made up of 21,000 diverse individuals and organizations, all sharing the common bond of an interest in rural health.