Providing Health Care For A Rural Community

Rural Oklahoma is filled with small farm communities and small towns. Towns where everyone knows everyone and family is of major importance. Pond Creek Oklahoma is one of those communities with a census approximately 856 residents located in Grant County (Pond Creek, Oklahoma, 2015). This town has strong Christian roots and you get the feel of family, football, and love. There is a small variety of businesses and churches but the primary source of income for the community is agricultural. It isn’t uncommon to see tractors making their way down the highway during planting times and combines during harvest. One thing that the town and its citizens lack is access to health care. There are no medical facilities in the town such

Growing up on a farm in rural South Dakota, one learns to go without. Country living often entails going without the newest clothes, technology, or even modern necessities. Unfortunately, it can also include the postponement of medical intervention when health begins to fail. The impact rural health clinics have on alleviating this maldistribution is immense.

One area where access to care is a problem is in the rural communities. Healthcare professionals including physicians, nurse practitioners, and nurses all affect the quality and cost of care (Derksen, & Whelan, 2009). Going forward importance needs to be placed on using recourses more efficiently and effectively; these resources include but are not limited to tests, prescriptions,

Many of the individuals who live within these communities are elderly, immigrants, farmers and migrants. They work and live off their land and lack the needed funds to purchase health insurance, because it is not affordable and they do not have transportation or a way of getting on bus routes, because they live so far out. The nearest local hospital is about 50 miles away and if they get seriously injured they must wait for an ambulance or life flight to arrive with an additional ride of about an hour before they receive adequate care in case of an emergency.

Transportation is one of the largest barriers to health care access in rural communities. Fortunately, many interventions

Healthcare access and delivery in rural area has been challenging not only within the U.S., but also in many developed countries. Many issues seem to be common to this maldistribution of physicians and other HCPs. According to Weinhold and Gurtner1, ” [c]ommunities have become progressively disempowered by the continuous centralization of services and the dismantling of infrastructure.” Rural populations tend to be at

Strategies that health care organization should consider to help with the challenges of the uninsured in rural areas include:

In the United States for decades the cost of health care has been on the rise and will continue to rise. Healthcare is a major concern for every country in the world. Access to healthcare service is critical for rural residents. Most importantly, residents should be able to have convenient access to medical care such as primary care, dental, behavioral health, emergency, and public health service. According to Health People 2020, access to healthcare is important for overall physical, social, and mental health status, prevention of disease, detection and treatment of illnesses, quality of life, preventable death, and life expectancy. Rural residents often experience obstacles to healthcare that limit their ability to receive the care they need. In order for rural residents to have sufficient healthcare access, necessary and appropriate services must be available.

The Australian government realized that there is something different about rural health that requires special actions. This realization was the reason for the development of rural health policies. The aim of the policies is to insure ‘equivalent’ access to good health and health care for people in rural places. The implementation of this policies was highly challenged by different factors including political and community reactions and therefore the outcome of the policy is affected also (Farmer & Currie, 2009) .

Significant health disparities between rural and urban populations have been a major concern in the United States. One prominent factor contributing to the disparities is lack of access to quality care in rural areas which is closely associated with challenges faced by rural health care providers (National Rural Health Association, 2007). Rural hospitals are the key health care provider in rural areas, offering essential health care services to nearly 54 million people (American Hospital Association, 2006). They face a series of challenges such as workforce shortages, rise in health care costs, difficulty in finding access to capital, difficulty in

Within the United States, there are substantial inequalities between the places and people. The rural community is one of such significant inequalities and health care disparities. With approximately one-sixth of the population in the United States of America living in rural areas, it is necessary to address the social and economic conditions accountable for the health disparities and inequalities among this vulnerable population.

Research requires the nursing scientists to explore the context of problems encountered. In order to identify targeted directions to hone efforts researchers must first identify the variables to be studied. The purpose of this paper is to synthesize the variables of Rural and Access to Mental Health Providers.

Rural Americans face an exclusive combination of issues that create disparities in health care that are not found in urban areas. Many complications met by healthcare providers and patients in rural arears are massively different than those located in urban areas. Financial factors, cultural and social variances, educational deficiencies, lack of acknowledgement by delegates and the absolute isolation of living in remote rural areas all combined to hinder rural Americans in their struggle to lead a normal, healthy life. Rural hospitals located in rural areas faces many disadvantages, such as; minimum resources, shortcoming or unprepared professionals, and financial disparities. Although many of these challenges could be solved

There are two principal conditions leading to physician shortages in rural communities according to Wright and colleagues. They are “demand-deficient”, meaning they have insufficient populations and resources to support a physician practice, they are “ambiance-challenged,” meaning they are isolated, lack quality services and amenities, and/or are in geographically unattractive settings, or a combination of the two sets of conditions. Inner-city physician shortages are a more recently recognized issue. They are affected by the same conditions, though the specifics are different (Wright, Andrilla, and Hart 2001).

Access to health care refers to the individual’s ability to obtain and use needed services (Ellis & Hartley, 2008). Access to health care affects a multitude of people. Uninsured, underinsured, elderly, lower socioeconomic class, minorities, and people that live in remote areas are at the highest risk for lack of access to health care. There are also economical and political roles that complicate access to health care. Access to health care is a multi-faceted concept involving geographic, economics, or sociocultural issues. With my extensive research on access to health care, I hope to provide influences regarding; who is affected by lack of access, geographic, economic, sociocultural access, and