Earle Rugg

Earle is co-founder of Rural Health IT Corporation. He has responsibility as CEO and for marketing and business development. For more than 20 years, he has worked in healthcare information technology, with knowledge and relationships in the healthcare community. Earle was instrumental in obtaining two AHRQ grants to initiate and build the Mt Ascutney/Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health Information Exchange (HIE) in Vermont and New Hampshire in 2004.

Likewise, he assisted the University of North Dakota win a HRSA Flex Network Grant for a HIE project there, as well as a HRSA Network Development Grant for the Transylvania Community Hospital Group HIE in North Carolina. He also co-founded Payer Technologies together with the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association.

Earle currently serves on the New England Council Healthcare Committee; New England Rural Health Roundtable; the HRSA/Rural Health Policy (ORHP) National HIT Conference Committee; Hospitaler for the Order of Malta, State of Maine; and numerous national and statewide HIE development committees and organizations. Earle is a graduate of Boston University and Suffolk University Law School. He frequently presents HIT funding & amp; sustainability strategies at conferences around the country.