KEVIN COOK, CEO, and MICHAEL HENDERSON, MD, CMO, University of Mississippi Medical Center and Health System (Jackson)
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“The citizens of our state are widely dispersed and face significant economic disparities. These disparities and geographic dispersion create barriers to accessing care in a timely and effective manner. Many potential patients live in areas with little health system infrastructure. The infrastructure that does exist is frequently overburdened or obsolete.
Patients with one or more chronic diseases are at a significant disadvantage as the infrastructure that does exist is not well designed to track and effectively treat patients with these chronic conditions. Rural patients that develop significant diseases are delayed in diagnosis and treatment, leading to poorer outcomes. Late, acute episodic care is the norm.
Much primary care, which includes screening, prevention and chronic disease management, can be delivered by care team members — nurse practitioners, RNs, medical assistants, pharmacists — under physician oversight. This ‘health’ care is best provided close to where patients live.
But, a component of such dispersed care must also be training of that care team to recognize when specialist referral is indicated and provide ready access to such care. Such new models of care can occur through innovative leadership, training and the use of inexpensive, disruptive, modern technologies. Examples include telehealth, remote patient monitoring and the creation of wide coalitions of rural providers.”
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