Skip to main content
Rural Health Information Hub

Rural Health
Resources by Topic: Specialty care

Wisconsin Physicians: Distribution by Specialty, Demographics, Population to Provider Ratios, Retirement
Provides detailed data on Wisconsin's physicians by specialty for different health service areas. Includes information summarized by region, and by urban and rural service area.
Date: 11/2016
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Wisconsin Area Health Education Center System
view details
Listening to the Patient: Women Veterans' Insights About Health Care Needs, Access, and Quality in Rural Areas
Presents a study on rural women veterans' experiences accessing quality healthcare. Focus group results highlight issues pertaining to access to oral and mental healthcare, community-based supports services, and gender-specific care in rural communities.
Author(s): Elizabeth Brooks, Nancy K. Dailey, Byron D. Bair, Jay H. Shore
Citation: Military Medicine, 181(9), 976-981
Date: 09/2016
Type: Document
view details
Geographic Accessibility of Pulmonologists for Adults with COPD
Examines county-level geographic access to pulmonologists for adults with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). Includes statistics describing the distance in miles to a pulmonologist or primary care physician for adults living in rural areas. Figure 1 overlays locations of pulmonologists with county estimates of adults with COPD. Figure 2 overlays the locations of primary care physician locations with county estimates of adults with COPD.
Author(s): Janet B. Croft, Hua Lu, Xingyou Zhang, James B. Holt
Citation: Chest, 150(3), 544-553
Date: 09/2016
Type: Document
view details
The Graduate Medical Education System and Physician Supply in Texas
Reports on the number of primary care and specialty physicians in Texas. Identifies the medical specialties at critical shortage levels and the rural and urban locations of physician specialists. Looks at the overall supply of physicians in the state, the relevancy of the graduate medical education (GME) system, and the ability of the GME system to meet the current and future healthcare needs in Texas.
Additional links: Addendum to the Graduate Medical Education System and Physician Supply in Texas
Date: 07/2016
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Texas Health and Human Services
view details
Providing Cardiology Care in Rural Areas Through Visiting Consultant Clinics
Examines impact of cardiology outreach clinics in 96 predominantly rural Iowa cities in 2014. Includes a map showing clinic sites and a table of mean one-way travel times with breakdowns by urban area, large rural city, small rural town, isolated rural town, and all rural census tracts.
Author(s): Thomas S. Gruca, Tae-Hyung Pyo, Gregory C. Nelson
Citation: Journal of the American Heart Association, 5(7)
Date: 06/2016
Type: Document
view details
Breaking the Barriers to Specialty Care: Practical Ideas to Improve Health Equity and Reduce Cost
Collection of briefs focused on how to improve access to specialty care for rural and low-income patients. Discusses telehealth, developing primary care capacity to provide appropriate specialty care, and coordinated specialist networks as approaches to improve specialty care access. Free, but registration required to download.
Date: 06/2016
Type: Document
Sponsoring organizations: Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation, FSG
view details
Challenges of Rural Cancer Care in the United States
Highlights the impact of rurality affecting the care of rural cancer patients and healthcare providers treating cancer patients. Discussion includes the availability of cancer specialists, limited transportation services, lower socioeconomic status, health insurance coverage, less access to clinical trials, and the shortage of palliative and end-of-life staff and services.
Author(s): Mary Charlton, Jennifer Schlichting, Catherine Chioreso, et al.
Citation: Oncology (Williston Park), 29(9), 633-640
Date: 09/2015
Type: Document
view details
Telepsychiatry for Neurocognitive Testing in Older Rural Latino Adults
Examines two methods of neurocognitive assessments, telepsychiatry and in-person, using the same Spanish-language battery for testing to determine whether they are comparable among Spanish-speaking older adults in a rural setting. Includes telepsychiatry and in-person assessment data by education, acculturation, health literacy, depression, and a mini mental state exam.
Author(s): Ipsit V. Vahia, Bernardo Ng, Alvaro Camacho, et al.
Citation: American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 23(7), 666-670
Date: 07/2015
Type: Document
view details
Adjacent Border Analysis for Direct Patient Care Physicians
Provides an analysis of direct patient care physicians practicing along the North Dakota border using 2011 data from the American Medical Association physician master file.
Author(s): Gary Hart, Mandi-Leigh Peterson, Abdimajid Ahmed
Date: 04/2015
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: University of North Dakota Center for Rural Health
view details
The 21st Century Rural Hospital: A Chart Book
Presents an extensive overview of the rural hospital of the 21st century. Discusses how rural hospitals have transformed from a traditional inpatient and emergency department facility to an integrated health system providing a wide variety of services. Contains sections with data about U.S. rural hospitals, the patient population, inpatient and outpatient services and finance.
Author(s): Victoria A. Freeman, Kristie Thompson, H. Ann Howard, Randy Randolph, G. Mark Holmes
Date: 03/2015
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: North Carolina Rural Health Research Program
view details