Rural residents face broad healthcare disparities due to lack of facilities and physician shortages, wrote Mr. Daschle and Mr. Tauke Aug. 15 in an op-ed for The Des Moines Register. Over 100 rural hospitals have closed in the U.S. since 2010, and 647 other hospitals are at risk of closing. Rural areas also have a lower patient-to-primary care physician ratio with 40 physicians per 100,000 people, compared to urban areas’ 53 physicians per 100,000 people.
Expanding rural residents’ access to healthcare offers a rare issue on which Democrats and Republicans can agree, the authors wrote. Ninety-two percent of Democrats and 93 percent of Republicans consider rural healthcare access an important issue, according to a survey commissioned by the BPC and American Heart Association.
The authors suggested transforming several inpatient rural hospitals into outpatient centers focused on primary care, such as emergency departments and clinics. A report from the BPC demonstrates not all communities may need a full-service inpatient hospital. The authors also recommended increasing telemedicine services, and they wrote that health systems must make long-term changes to their infrastructures to combat rural areas’ lack of healthcare access.
More articles on clinical leadership & infection control:
Midwest hospitals report dozens of severe lung injuries linked to vaping
‘Off-service’ patient placements linked to worse outcomes, study finds
Patients often too embarrassed to share health threats with physicians, study finds
