The Long Term Health Improvement Of The Rural Population

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,

To respond to these legislative changes, there must be an increase in the professional workforce of rural health. The existing workforce will need extensive training to deal with the new aspects of the Affordable Care Act, and new professionals need to be encouraged to practice in rural areas. The following are potential methods for increasing the health care workforce of rural and frontier America:

Another threat is the current state of rural hospitals nationwide. According to the case study, about 25% of Americans live in rural areas and only about 10% of physicians actually practice in rural areas. There is a 15% gap in the ratio of rural citizens to available practicing physicians. This is a threat to ELH’s need to attract and hire more physicians. In relation to rural hospitals, citizens have longer drive times to their medical facilities. This causes them to delay routine visits which subsequently exacerbates

Overall poor health and chronic illness affect patients who live in rural areas more than those who live in urban areas. “Healthcare workforce shortages are prevalent with less than 10% of all physicians choosing to practice in rural settings.” ( Darling, McCellan, Samuel, Patel ) Instead, these challenges call for a social perspective with a focus on prevention and a healthy lifestyle. Rural hospitals have disproportionately struggled with empty beds in recent years.

Rural Americans face the struggle of accessing healthcare, both preventative services and also specialty care, here in America. What is the cause most often? Distance. According to a study conducted by Buzza et al (2011), those surveyed believed that distance was perhaps the most important reason for lack of access to healthcare on a variety of the spectrum to include: routine healthcare, emergency care, specialty care, and in some cases diagnostic services. What the study found was that among other things, improved means of getting to said services would in turn, improve access to healthcare services for rural Americans.

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

Rural health professionals represent a diverse set of individuals seeking to meet the main goals of public health. Their desire to promote health and prevent disease is blocked by many barriers, due to the geographical position of their target population; yet they still persevere to serve their specified communities. Approximately twenty percent of America is rural, and rural counties are more likely to report fair to poor health. This particular population cannot be compared to its urban counterparts due the sheer amount of obstacles health care providers and patients face. Rural Americans are shaped by geography and tradition which creates a combination of factors that create disparities.

choose to form a Rural Health Clinic focused on wellness, with the joint value of an integrative

engage rural communities, promote rural health care system development and create collaborative referral systems with urban

When assessing the current state of healthcare in the United States, properly forming an answer requires the separation of healthcare by geography, demographics, and economics. These factors influence the quality and availability of services and resources available to clients and professionals. The urban areas will usually have greater access to an array of services and resources, whereas the rural areas will see limitation in this regard. The rural community is normally a place with an eclectic collection of self-reliant people many of whom have never been exposed, within the context of healthcare, to the complexities contained within the healthcare organizations in urban environments. This factor does not eliminate or alleviate, for that

Rural Americans depend on their community hospitals as critical component of the area’s economic and social material. These hospitals are usually the largest or second largest employer in the community, and often stand alone in their ability to offer highly-skilled jobs. According to, The Opportunities and Challenges for Rural Hospitals in an Era of Health Reform; “For every job in a rural community, between 0.77 and 0.3 less jobs are created in the local economy, spurred by the spending of either

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).

Despite huge waves of urbanization in recent years, 120 million individuals, 20% of Latin America’s population, still reside in rural areas (PRB, 2014). Many of these people live in remote, mountain or rainforest communities in the Andes Mountains or the Amazon Basin and typically live agrarian lifestyles. However, the definition of what constitutes a rural area verses an urban area varies between countries. For example, Venezuela defines an urban area as a population center with more than 1,000 inhabitants while Argentina defines an urban area as a center with more than 2,000 inhabitants, and Peru considers any center with more than 100 dwellings as urban (United Nations, 2005). Regardless of the definition, rural populations in the region

If the area or town was lucky enough to have a hospital around close by, it would not be equipped as well as an urban hospital would. They would not have the latest technology or equipment. There is also the difference of doctor’s offices. In urban doctor offices, because there are so many people coming and going and time is limited, people are treated as a patient, not as an individual person. They are rushed in and rushed right back out. But in a doctor’s office in a rural area, people are seen as a person before they are a patient. As stated in an article by Staiti A. J. Reschovsky, “Across multiple aspects of care delivered, rural physicians report greater ability to deliver quality care than urban physicians. Rural patients similarly express greater trust in their physicians and provide higher rating to their physician’s performance than their urban counterparts. (Reschovsky). Another difference in urban and rural health care is that there are higher death rates from unintentional injuries, suicide, and chronic pulmonary disease in rural areas. (Eberhardt and Pamuk). This is due to health care facilities not being well enough equipped or prepared when a life threatening emergency occurs. It is also due to having to travel to the nearest hospital or appropriate doctor’s office when injured or sick. If a person is hemorrhaging or injured really badly there is a very good chance they

Critically review the strengths, weaknesses and challenges of the National Rural Health Mission drawing on secondary data and your own experiences during block field work. The analysis must be contextualized to the state that you were placed in.