The Glaring Content Gap in Most Healthcare Tech Vendor RHT Strategies

April 24, 2026
Posted by: growth@locutushealth.com
Category: General Healthcare

I’m calling it: Rural Health Transformation is a sleeper program. Five to ten years from now, the industry will look back at long-lasting impacts nobody expected—and a handful of enterprise health tech vendors will be basking in wins most of their peers didn’t see coming.

Those winners won’t be the ones who moved fastest on sales activation. Yes, early engagement (activated sales teams, targeted state lists, town hall attendance) is absolutely necessary, it’s just not sufficient.

State leaders and their influencers (hospital and health system leaders) are looking for something sales tactics alone can’t deliver: healthcare tech vendors who can guide them through a novel, ongoing program where the rules are still being written.

That’s a content play, and the vendors who’ll come out on top are already building content inertia parallel to the program’s design—state-level granularity, original research, and the kind of direction-setting that shapes buyer opinions before sales conversations start.

Read on to learn why RHT will favor vendors with a proactive and bold content strategy, why sales tactics alone fall short, and how to diagnose your own content gaps quickly.

Why RHT Will Be Uniquely Content Driven

Outside of government programs, enterprise healthcare tech-buying is largely committee-driven—members are doing massive amounts of research (up to 70%) before making first contact with sales. In increasingly rare situations, it’s sales-driven, with the buyer doing little research and leaning on word of mouth or past relationships.

RHT might feel like just another government program or a case where leaders are just turning to their usual preferred vendors, but it isn’t. Take Oregon as an example. They’ve recently published their vendor list of 352 organizations that have expressed interest in supporting use of their $197.3 million year-one RHT allocation. This example highlights three traits of the program that dictate the need for a different approach to content.

It’s brand new: While some states are leaning on existing procurement relationships, there’s no established pre-existing vendor shortlist. State leaders are looking for new ways to tackle persistent healthcare problems in a transformative and sustainable way.
It’s state-specific: The meaning of transformation will change from state to state. Each will require a different conversation and different approach to RFIs and RFPs.
It’s politically visible: Since RHT is tied to hot-button issues like Medicaid cuts, rural hospital closures, and workforce shortages, you’ll need to approach with care. Metrics will be reported to the federal government and the public will expect results, so they’re looking at vendors who prove they understand the seriousness and value of sustainability.

Each of these traits represents a gap that sales tactics or traditional RFP processes alone can’t close, but that content can.

While most vendors are still sleeping on the potential of RHT, I’m glad to see some taking action. We’re actually seeing examples from major vendors already:

These vendors are signaling to the market that they’re engaged, that they understand the program, and that they have solutions built for real transformation. We’re still in the window for tech vendors to move early. This brief on RHT vendor opportunities will be useful if you’re interested in getting ahead of Rural Health Transformation.

How Content Supports Tech Vendors in Rural Health Transformation

Content fills in the RHT gaps that your sales, biz dev, and RFP teams can’t. It gets ahead of the buying inflection point to shape vision, insight, and the possibilities of sustainable, vendor-supported transformation. Here’s how content helps close those gaps.

Positioning you as a visionary and thinking partner for existing clients

Years ago a LocutusHealth client commissioned a KLAS survey. The most striking finding was that their customers wanted their tech partner to reach out in building a shared vision for themselves and how they use the solution. This sentiment sits at the heart of the Rural Health Transformation Program—and your clients (urban hospitals included) will be impacted by the program, potentially in ways they can’t control.

The window you’re in now is your chance to help your customers think, build out robust grant applications, and shift their vision of the future of rural health. Go beyond selling them tech and publish perspectives that prove you can support that vision.

Establish credibility early

RFPs are already dropping across multiple states, and so are advisory councils, comment periods, and town halls. Vendors who come in with published perspectives will not only be taken seriously, but will also be more prepared to answer questions when state leaders apply scrutiny to their claims.

Remember, content forces the hard questions and pushes your team to grow beyond their status quo of features, functionality, and results.

The Hawai’i example

Hawai’i is probably one of the most interesting RHT states, and that’s for a few reasons. It has an overt focus on ‘ohana (family) and kuleana (responsibility to community). This position begs for a demonstration of investment before procurement—something like a content series co-authored with established community voices or community health leaders.

Supporting the RFP Process

While RFPs aren’t a traditional content marketing play, content is still incredibly powerful, especially in RHT’s multi-track procurement structure. This includes:

Solidifying pre-RFP positioning: Published frameworks, white papers, and even LinkedIn content
Establishing a strong sustainability narrative: This will be the biggest uphill battle for most vendors. State decision makers are keenly aware of the fact that they need to prove ongoing transformation past the 2030 funding cliff, so every RFP response needs to tell a strong, post-2030 story. Take Montana for example—they’ve openly established the fact that they’re scrutinizing vendor RFPs for sustainability. These narratives should be published before the RFPs drop so that the public has something to reference.
RFI response support: Multiple states are issuing RFIs before their RFPs, including New Mexico and Montana. These written applications are an exercise in intentional content.
Sub-grantee-level influence: RHT is a multi-track procurement process, and vendors need content that can travel up the chain of decision. Alaska’s chain flows from CMS, to the state agency, to sub-grantees (hospitals, health systems, and FQHCs, etc.) A sales rep has no visibility into this chain and definitely no influence.
Advisory role opportunities: Multiple states (such as Minnesota) have RFPs for advisory services. This is an opportunity for a vendor to advise on appropriate HIT purchases and creating effective monitoring programs for oversight. In this case, content functions as a credentialing aid.

Equipping your sales and BDR teams

I’m seeing a lot of vendor reps reaching out cold with their usual playbooks. This has won some attention, but it’s incredibly inefficient and forfeits the potential of this expanding program. The primary issue here is that the playbook doesn’t fit the procurement structure.

Content also carries different weight in different states—for example, Texas has openly stated it’s not meeting with potential vendors or applicants for the sake of fairness. Sales outreach is heavily restricted (if not completely off the table), meaning content might be the only option to influence state decision-makers in this state.

Your sales teams need substance to lead with, including a library of state-specific documents targeted toward your state shortlists.

The RHT Foundational Content You Need

RHT content doesn’t have to be an extensive campaign, but it does require assets built for the unique nature of the program. Focus on telling a genuine and well-thought-out digital transformation narrative while using lighter content to demonstrate state-level investment and understanding. Consider elements like:

RHT webpage copy
Target state microsites
Customer marketing content (RHT newsletter segments, account-specific thought leadership, insider webinars)
Solution-to-program one-pagers (helpful for RFPs)
Search-optimized blogs and press releases
Case studies translated into rural health/RHT contexts

Most vendors will have the bones of all these materials, and will just need to invest some time and resources into reframing and relaunching them for an RHT context. The investment is in reframing and relaunching for RHT context, leveraging what you have instead of starting from scratch.

Diagnosing the State of Your RHT Content

If your team is unsure of how your current content presence aligns with RHT standards, sit down to answer a few questions:

If we had to answer an RFI today, would we have to start creating a digital transformation narrative from scratch?
Have we reached out to our existing rural clients about their RHT plans? Have we reached out to urban clients about their status as hub organizations or their relationships with FQHCs and community health centers?
If a state advisory committee searched our name along with “rural health” what would they find? What impression would they be left with?
Can our sales team easily articulate how our solution aligns with RHT priorities? Would every rep have the same answers? Are they equipped with leave-behinds to back these answers up or are we limiting ourselves to real-time one-on-one conversations?
Are we updating our content as the RHT program evolves or are we leaning on outdated pieces from 2025?

If any of these were difficult or uncomfortable, an RHT Opportunity Scan can get you unstuck in just a week.

Your Next Steps to a Robust RHT Program

Year one funding is moving and this is only the beginning. Vendors doing the work of developing content are building their RHT muscles—the ones that will serve them through 2030 and beyond the funding and sustainability cliff. If you’re seeing gaps, one of these packages is a great place to start filling them in.