(a) (1) The Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development shall develop and administer a competitive grants program for projects located in rural areas of California.

(2) The office shall define “rural area” for the purposes of this section after receiving public input and upon recommendation of the Interdepartmental Rural Health Coordinating Committee and the Rural Health Programs Liaison.

(3) The purpose of the grants program shall be to fund innovative, collaborative, cost-effective, and efficient projects that pertain to the delivery of health and medical services in rural areas of the state.

(4) The office shall develop and establish uses for the funds to fund special projects that alleviate problems of access to quality health care in rural areas and to compensate public and private health care providers associated with direct delivery of patient care. The funds shall be used for medical and hospital care and treatment of patients who cannot afford to pay for services and for whom payment will not be made through private or public programs.

(5) The office shall administer the funds appropriated by the Legislature for purposes of this section. Entities eligible for these funds shall include rural health providers served by the programs operated by the office, the Emergency Medical Services Authority, the State Department of Health Care Services, the State Department of Public Health, and the Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board. The grant funds shall be used to expand existing services or establish new services and shall not be used to supplant existing levels of service. Funds appropriated by the Legislature for this purpose may be expended in the fiscal year of the appropriation or the subsequent fiscal year.

(b) The Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development shall establish the criteria and standards for eligibility to be used in requests for proposals or requests for application, the application review process, determining the maximum amount and number of grants to be awarded, preference and priority of projects, compliance monitoring, and the measurement of outcomes achieved after receiving comment from the public at a meeting held pursuant to the Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act (Article 9 (commencing with Section 11120) of Chapter 1 of Part 1 of Division 3 of Title 2 of the Government Code).

(c) The Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development shall make information regarding the status of the funded projects available at the public meetings described in subdivision (b).

(Amended by Stats. 2013, Ch. 22, Sec. 13. (AB 75) Effective June 27, 2013. Operative July 1, 2013, by Sec. 110 of Ch. 22.)