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Rural Health Information Hub

Rural Health
Resources by Topic: Healthcare needs and services

New Frontiers for Funding: An Introduction to Grantmaking in Rural Aging
Offers guidance on offering grant funds for rural aging work, discussing scale of funding, rural assets, sustainability, and partnership building. Highlights rural aging issues including health, rural culture, transportation, broadband, housing and institutional care, and social isolation.
Date: 06/2024
Sponsoring organization: Grantmakers In Aging
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Decisions to Practice in Rural Areas Among Mental Health Care Professionals
Research letter describing a study examining factors associated with mental health professionals' decisions to practice in rural areas and whether those factors differ by professional type. Uses data from Minnesota's health licensing boards and a survey of active Minnesota healthcare professionals collected from 2022-2023. Features statistics with breakdowns by provider type and rural or urban location.
Author(s): Carrie Henning-Smith, Teri Fritsma, Andrew P.J. Olson, Selam Woldegerima, Hannah MacDougall
Citation: JAMA Network Open, 7(6), e2421285
Date: 06/2024
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New Mexico Medicaid: Physical Health and Behavioral Health Workforce
Reports on New Mexico healthcare workforce trends. Discusses healthcare workforce graduation data, Medicaid enrollment compared to provider access, and specialty care provider trends. Includes county-level data of workforce distribution by provider type. Offers recommendations to increase the healthcare workforce, recruitment and retention, and increasing access to healthcare.
Date: 06/2024
Sponsoring organization: New Mexico Legislative Finance Committee
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Reducing Maternal Mortality, a Healthy People 2030 Leading Health Indicator
Provides an overview of maternal mortality and public health strategies to address maternal health. Includes maternal health resources related to priority issues of the Healthy People 2030 framework, with references to rural maternal health disparities.
Author(s): Corinne Gillenwater
Date: 06/2024
Sponsoring organization: Association of State and Territorial Health Officials
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Cervical Cancer Screening Rates among Rural and Urban Females, From 2019 to 2022
Analyzes frequency of receiving a recent Papanicolau (Pap) test among rural and urban women aged 21 to 65, using Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS) data from 2019, 2020, and 2022. Provides screening rate data comparisons by year and by demographic category, including race and ethnicity, age, insurance status, educational level, and more.
Author(s): Tyrone F. Borders, Amanda Thaxton Wiggins
Citation: JAMA Network Open, 7(6), e2417094
Date: 06/2024
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Understanding the Rise of Ransomware Attacks on Rural Hospitals
Explores trends in ransomware attacks on rural hospitals between 2016 and 2021 by analyzing data from the Tracking Healthcare Ransomware Events and Traits (THREAT) database. Describes the types of rural hospitals that experienced ransomware attacks during this period. Compares the frequency of hospitals' operational disruptions during attacks by urban and rural location.
Author(s): Hannah T. Neprash, Claire C. McGlave, Katie Rydberg, Carrie Henning-Smith
Date: 06/2024
Sponsoring organization: University of Minnesota Rural Health Research Center
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Five Things to Know About Medicare Site-Neutral Payment Reforms
Discusses site-neutral payment reforms that seek to align Medicare payments with outpatient services in different settings. Examines benefits and drawbacks of the policy and discusses how the policy would impact rural hospitals.
Author(s): Zachary Levinson, Tricia Neuman, Scott Hulver
Date: 06/2024
Sponsoring organization: KFF
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Updated Analysis: Using Population-Based Outcome Measures to Assess the Impact of Telehealth Expansion on Medicare Beneficiaries' Access to Care and Quality of Care
Explores the association between telehealth use, quality of care, and access to care when both telehealth and in-person visits are available to fee-for-service (FFS) Medicare beneficiaries. Compares data from the second half of 2018 and 2019 to the second half of 2022 by the level of telehealth utilization in Hospital Service Areas (HSAs). Describes the effects of telehealth for urban and rural beneficiaries and differentiates between telehealth utilization for behavioral and non-behavioral health services. Updates a June 2023 report that analyzed data from 2021.
Author(s): Tanvi Rao, Angshuman Gooptu, Karin Johnson, Guido Cataife, Steven Susana-Castillo
Date: 06/2024
Sponsoring organizations: American Institutes for Research, Medicare Payment Advisory Commission
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Alabama Maternity Care Target Areas (MCTA)
County-level map showing high-need, primary care Health Professional Shortage Areas meeting specific criteria based on ratio of females ages 15-44 to maternity care providers, low-income women, distance/travel time to care, fertility rates, social vulnerability, and maternal health indicators.
Date: 06/2024
Sponsoring organization: Alabama Office of Primary Care and Rural Health
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MedPAC Report to the Congress: Medicare and the Health Care Delivery System, June 2024
Evaluates Medicare payment issues and provides recommendations to the U.S. Congress. Covers approaches for updating fee-for-service (FFS) Medicare's physician fee schedule (PFS) payments and incentivizing participation in alternative payment models; provider networks and prior authorization in Medicare Advantage (MA) plans; an assessment of the relative completeness of MA encounter data and other data sources; Medicare coverage and payments for medical software; alternate approaches to lower Medicare payment rates for select conditions in inpatient rehabilitation facilities; and Medicare's Acute Hospital Care at Home program. Includes rural references throughout.
Additional links: Executive Summary
Date: 06/2024
Sponsoring organization: Medicare Payment Advisory Commission
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