Rural Healthcare Workforce – Resources

Provider Shortages and Limited Availability of Behavioral Health Services in New Mexico's Medicaid Managed Care
Examines the supply and distribution of behavioral health providers and prescribers across New Mexico, with a focus on services available to Medicaid managed care enrollees. Includes data for rural and frontier counties. Discusses rural broadband connectivity challenges that impact the use of telehealth to address access. Offers policy recommendations. Findings are likely to be relevant to behavioral healthcare access in other states' rural and frontier counties.
Date: 09/2019
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Office of Inspector General (HHS)
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Violence Against Hospital Workers: Growing Awareness, Rural Interventions, and Why It Still Goes Unreported
Provides an overview of workplace violence in healthcare settings. Features rural hospitals in Oregon and Idaho that are undertaking a range of prevention activities addressing workplace violence. Also features research findings from a Michigan healthcare system study on the topic, and identifies resources and tools that rural hospital leaders can use to help protect hospital staff.
Author(s): Jenn Lukens
Citation: Rural Monitor
Date: 09/2019
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Rural Health Information Hub
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Perceived Facilitators and Barriers to Rural Nursing Practice
Results of a web-based survey of 435 nurses, examining perceived facilitators and barriers to nursing practice, job satisfaction, and self-identified challenges in nursing work environments and patient care. Features statistics including educational training and work preparation, educational characteristics of ambulatory care nurses, and demographic characteristics of survey participants, with breakdowns by rural, suburban, and urban location.
Author(s): Janice C. Probst, Selina Hunt McKinney, Whitney Zahnd, Eboni Haynes
Date: 08/2019
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Rural and Minority Health Research Center (formerly the South Carolina Rural Health Research Center)
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Isolated, Small, and Large Hospitals Have Fewer Nursing Resources than Urban Hospitals: Implications for Rural Health Policy
Describes the nurse work environment, nurse education, nursing skill mix, and patient-to-registered nurse (RN) ratios across hospitals in California, Florida, and Pennsylvania. Examines how the findings differ by urban, large, small, and isolated hospitals, and discusses the potential impact on patient outcomes.
Author(s): Jessica G. Smith, Colin M. Plover, Moira C. McChesney, Eileen T. Lake
Citation: Public Health Nursing, 36(4), 469-477
Date: 04/2019
Type: Document
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Rural Surgery Call Coverage: Innovative Locoregional Solutions Can Fill the Gap
Features rural locum tenens systems as possible templates to help provide call coverage for rural surgeons. Highlights a successful pilot Canadian Rural Locum Tenens Project and a collaboration with a surgical group in Ohio that helped provide surgical coverage for area rural hospitals.
Author(s): Stephen Hiscock, Michael Sarap
Citation: Bulletin of the American College of Surgeons, 104(4), 52-54
Date: 04/2019
Type: Document
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Peer Support Specialists Care for and Connect Rural Behavioral Health Clients
Discusses peer support specialists, trained laypeople in recovery with a mental health condition or substance use disorder, and describes the roles they play as mentors and coordinators for clients with similar behavioral health issues. Features peer support specialist programs in rural Arizona, Michigan, and North Dakota.
Author(s): Allee Mead
Citation: Rural Monitor
Date: 02/2019
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Rural Health Information Hub
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Diversity in Medicine: Facts and Figures 2019
Provides detailed statistical information about race, ethnicity, and sex in medical education and the physician workforce in the United States. Displays applicant, matriculant, and graduate data for the academic year 2018-2019 and faculty and workforce data for 2018.
Additional links: Executive Summary
Date: 2019
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Association of American Medical Colleges
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Case Study: How Alaska Addresses Its Health Care Workforce Challenges
Reviews how state agencies and organizations in Alaska have collaborated to address health workforce shortages, particularly in rural areas of the state. Highlights the state's apprenticeship program, workforce coalition, use of Medicaid to pay nontraditional healthcare workers, and more.
Author(s): Rachel Donlon, Natalie Williams
Date: 11/2018
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: National Academy for State Health Policy
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Impact of Nurse Practitioner Practice Regulations on Rural Population Health Outcomes
Analyzes data from Rural Health Clinics (RHCs) in eight Southeastern states to determine if clinical outcomes of Medicare beneficiaries vary by level of practice autonomy that states grant to nurse practitioners (NPs).
Author(s): Judith Ortiz, Richard Hofler, Angeline Bushy, et al.
Citation: Healthcare, 6(2), 65
Date: 06/2018
Type: Document
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Closing Behavioral Health Workforce Gaps: A HRSA Program Expanding Direct Mental Health Service Access in Underserved Areas
Commentary describing HRSA's Behavioral Health Workforce Education and Training program, an initiative to address behavioral health disparities through supply and distribution of providers to underserved areas. Includes statistics on employment status and location of 1,975 graduates of the program.
Author(s): Hayden O. Kepley, Robin A. Streeter
Citation: American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 54(6), Supplement 3, S190-S191
Date: 06/2018
Type: Document
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