Mayo Clinic is helping shape a new model for delivering hospital-level care beyond traditional settings through an initiative that brings advanced, high-quality care directly to patients in rural and underserved communities. The project is part of a larger federal effort known as the ARPA-H (Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health) PARADIGM (Platform Accelerating Rural Access to Distributed and Integrated Medical Care) program.

Mayo Clinic is a subawardee on the Platform fOr mEdical inTeroperability (POET) project within the PARADIGM program, collaborating with SRI International and the University of Florida to develop intelligent task-guidance systems that help healthcare workers safely perform specific clinical procedures and use medical devices without requiring direct support from specialists.

Mayo's goal is simple but transformative: make it possible for patients to receive reliable, high-quality care closer to home. To do so, Mayo is developing artificial intelligence (AI)-powered tools that support clinicians in safely performing procedures and using medical technologies in environments where specialized care may not always be possible.

Bringing phlebotomy services closer to patients in rural communities

Today, many patients in rural communities who need routine phlebotomy services, such as a blood draw or an IV, may need to travel long distances to access care. With funding from the ARPA-H PARADIGM program, Mayo Clinic is helping enable a model where mobile care teams can deliver these services closer to home.

In the future, a healthcare worker in a mobile care unit could perform a blood draw guided in real time by AI-assisted tools trained on expert technique. Using advanced imaging and computer vision, the system identifies the optimal vein and visually highlights where to place the needle, while also providing step-by-step guidance, similar to a checklist, through each part of the procedure.

During the first year of the program, Mayo recorded 300 blood draws and then used advanced imaging technologies to train AI systems to support tasks like vein selection and technique. "If you think broadly across medical procedures, phlebotomy is arguably the most frequently performed," says W. David Freeman, M.D., professor of neurology and neurosurgery at Mayo Clinic Florida and co-lead on the project. "It's foundational — you need blood draws for diagnostics and IV access for treatment."

Expanding AI-supported procedures to improve access

Similar tools are being developed to reduce delays and expand access to more procedures via guidance at the point of care, including orthopedic splinting.

"This is extremely patient‑centered," says Leslie Simon, D.O., chair of Emergency Medicine at Mayo Clinic Florida, fellowship director of Medical Simulation and co-lead on the project. "If you're going to learn, you learn from the best. The goal is to scale expert knowledge so clinicians in rural or remote areas can perform these procedures with greater confidence and consistency."

By combining clinical expertise with emerging technologies funded through the ARPA-H PARADIGM program, Mayo Clinic is helping develop new models of care that bring services closer to the nearly 1 in 5 Americans living in rural communities, expanding access to timely, high-quality care.

This research was funded, in part, by the U.S. Government. The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the U.S. Government.

Related Articles