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The Rural Monitor
Articles by Topic: Social determinants of health

Staving Off One's Mortality: Rural Kidney Health and Its Disparities

June 15, 2022
For the 240,000 rural Americans with complete kidney failure, it's likely that very few knew they even had kidney disease. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, kidney disease is usually silent; 90% of people with kidney disease don't know they have it. With research pointing to the high costs of kidney disease for pediatric and adult patients alike — mostly covered by Medicare — experts and researchers discuss rural disparities around access to disease-stabilizing treatment and to renal replacement therapies.

The Codes of Care: How Words and Numbers Have Transformative Power for Rural Healthcare

April 13, 2022
The greatest opportunity to tell the rural healthcare delivery story is an opportunity often missed — and that opportunity involves translating clinical documentation into medical codes. In addition to describing how the story and quality of clinical care gets translated from words into alphanumeric numbers, medical coding experts also pointed to aligned efforts to familiarize those in graduate medical education settings with the impact of their clinical documentation.

From Idea to Reality: Federal Funding Supports Quapaw Nation's Community Paramedicine Program

February 16, 2022
By leveraging federal COVID-related funding, the Quapaw Nation now serves its local residents with a new community paramedicine program. Current program data indicates that it's bringing significant cost savings, along with valuable information for future local healthcare delivery decision-making. Most importantly, the program is also proving to be widely acceptable to community members.

“It's the relationships”: Q&A with Peggy Broussard Wheeler

January 19, 2022
Peggy Broussard Wheeler, Vice President of Policy at the California Hospital Association, discusses the challenges that the hospitals in her state and nationwide have faced before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. She also shares rural hospitals' unique strengths and the importance of collaboration and relationships.

Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation: Taking a Leadership Role and Building Trust

January 20, 2021
Kim Barber Tieman, program director for health and human services for the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation, shares how her foundation set up a COVID-19 grant capture team and funded grant writers to help organizations navigate and apply for federal funding opportunities. In addition, her foundation worked with organizations and funded three mobile COVID testing units to better reach communities of color.

Listening to Rural Stories: Q&A with Alisa Druzba

November 25, 2020
Alisa Druzba, director of the New Hampshire's Office of Rural Health and Primary Care, discusses her journey to becoming a SORH director, the ways her state has been affected by the pandemic, and the favorite parts of her job.