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Rural Health
Resources by Topic: Healthcare needs and services

Emerging Strategies to Ensure Access to Health Care Services: Emergency Medical Center
Provides an overview of the emergency medical center (EMC) model, which would allow struggling hospitals to convert to EMC status and provide emergency and outpatient services, without having to provide inpatient acute care services. Also outlines rural-specific federal policy proposals that seek to create similar hospital designations, with the goal of improving access to and the delivery of care in underserved communities.
Date: 11/2017
Sponsoring organization: American Hospital Association
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Health Impacts of Methamphetamine Use in Alaska
Presents a report on methamphetamine use in Alaska. Analyzes rates of usage and mortality by demographics, such as age and region of the state, among others.
Author(s): Laura Coughlin, Deborah Hull-Jilly
Citation: State of Alaska Epidemiology Bulletin, 19(4)
Date: 11/2017
Sponsoring organization: Alaska Division of Public Health
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The Front Lines of the Opioid Crisis: Perspectives from States, Communities, and Providers
Video recording details the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee hearing on the opioid epidemic. Features testimony detailing efforts to combat opioid addiction from representatives of the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Dentistry; the Rhode Island Department of Behavioral Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities and Hospitals; the Wisconsin Prescription Drug Monitoring Program; and the Kentucky Justice and Public Safety Cabinet.
Date: 11/2017
Sponsoring organization: Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions
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Catalyzing Medicaid-Public Health Collaboration to Reduce Childhood Obesity
Explains cross-sector interventions tested by 5 states - Arizona, Maryland, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Texas - participating in the Center for Health Care Strategies' Innovations in Childhood Obesity Initiative. Each state profile highlights how Medicaid and public health agencies are using innovative approaches to address childhood obesity in their high-risk communities. The Texas initiative focuses on childhood obesity in the rural, low-income population along the U.S./Mexico border.
Author(s): Alexandra Maul, Stephen A. Somers
Date: 11/2017
Sponsoring organization: Center for Health Care Strategies
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State Flex Program Rural Emergency Medical Services Assessment Strategies
Policy brief describing the emergency medical service (EMS) assessment projects and tools implemented by five State Flex Programs in Arizona, California, Minnesota, Nebraska, and Wisconsin to improve the integration of EMS into rural systems of care. Identifies differences in EMS focused State Flex activities and collaborations to improve local and regional EMS capacity and performance.
Author(s): Karen Pearson, John Gale, Sara Kahn-Troster, Andrew Coburn
Date: 11/2017
Sponsoring organization: Flex Monitoring Team
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Rural Unintentional Injuries: They're Not Accidents – They're Preventable
Examines the three leading causes of rural unintentional injuries: transportation injuries, poisonings, and falls. Discusses how rural areas compare to urban areas for these concerns, and identifies successful rural prevention strategies related to motor vehicle fatalities, non-drug poisonings, and falls.
Author(s): Kay Miller Temple
Citation: Rural Monitor
Date: 11/2017
Sponsoring organization: Rural Health Information Hub
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Emerging Strategies to Ensure Access to Health Care Services: Virtual Care Strategies
Discusses opportunities to use telehealth to improve healthcare access and delivery to vulnerable rural and urban communities. Includes recommendations from the American Hospital Association Task Force on Ensuring Access in Vulnerable Communities and details the benefits of telehealth services and potential policy solutions such as reimbursement, interaction of state and federal laws, broadband access, and federal research.
Date: 11/2017
Sponsoring organization: American Hospital Association
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Staff Sharing Arrangements for Local Public Health
Describes several case studies of local public health organizations' arrangements for sharing health directors, physicians, nurses, inspectors, social workers, or administration staff. Includes descriptions of such arrangements in public health agencies in rural areas of Webster County, Iowa and in 3 adjacent northwestern Oregon counties with a mixture of urban, suburban, and rural areas.
Author(s): Gerald Young, Joshua Franzel
Date: 11/2017
Sponsoring organizations: Center for State & Local Government Excellence, Public Health Accreditation Board
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Ensuring Access with a Hospital's Conversion to a Freestanding Emergency Department
Outlines Ellijay, Georgia-based North Georgia Medical Center's transition from a traditional community hospital to a freestanding emergency department (ED). Shares administrative, legal, and logistical challenges that, once overcome, resulted in Piedmont Mountainside Hospital Emergency Services - a successful, community-focused, freestanding ED.
Date: 11/2017
Sponsoring organization: American Hospital Association Rural Health Services
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Robert Pack & Maggie Elehwany: VRHA Keynoters--and VRHA Board President Summer Sage
Recording from the 2017 Virginia Rural Health Association (VRHA)'s Rural Health Providers Conference. Discussion of new rural healthcare-related education initiatives and resources, grant funding to help combat the Virginia opioid crisis, and rural health policy developments on the federal level and their impact on rural areas.
Date: 11/2017
Sponsoring organizations: Center for Rural Affairs, National Rural Education Association
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