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Rural Health
Resources by Topic: Critical Access Hospitals

Emerging Strategies to Ensure Access to Health Care Services: Frontier Health System
Discusses the challenges of providing care in frontier communities and offers solutions for improving access to and delivery of care. Proposes the creation of a frontier-specific accountable care organization (ACO), the Frontier Health System (FHS), that provides traditional ACO services along with transportation, swing beds, home-based care, expanded visiting nurse services, and more.
Date: 11/2017
Sponsoring organization: American Hospital Association
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State Flex Program Rural Emergency Medical Services Assessment Strategies
Policy brief describing the emergency medical service (EMS) assessment projects and tools implemented by five State Flex Programs in Arizona, California, Minnesota, Nebraska, and Wisconsin to improve the integration of EMS into rural systems of care. Identifies differences in EMS focused State Flex activities and collaborations to improve local and regional EMS capacity and performance.
Author(s): Karen Pearson, John Gale, Sara Kahn-Troster, Andrew Coburn
Date: 11/2017
Sponsoring organization: Flex Monitoring Team
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Delta Memorial Hospital: SRHT Project Well Under Way
Documents Delta Memorial Hospital's (DMH) progress as part of the Small Rural Hospital Transition (SRHT) Project, which it completed during 2017. DMH, a 25-bed Critical Access Hospital (CAH) located in Dumas, Arkansas, focused efforts on improving quality of care and transitions of care throughout its facilities. Explores how implementing the recommendations impacted several measurable and non-measurable outcomes.
Date: 11/2017
Sponsoring organization: National Rural Health Resource Center
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Medicare Inappropriately Paid Acute-Care Hospitals for Outpatient Services They Provided to Beneficiaries Who Were Inpatients of Other Facilities
Results of an audit to determine whether Medicare made payments appropriately to acute-care hospitals for outpatient services provided to other facilities' inpatients, from January 2013 through August 2016. Includes recommendations from the Office of Inspector General, and CMS's responses.
Additional links: Report in Brief
Author(s): Daniel R. Levinson
Date: 09/2017
Sponsoring organization: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
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Wisconsin Drive Time to Emergency Care
Shows a map of Wisconsin with drive times to Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs), non-CAHs, and freestanding emergency rooms in 10, 20, and 30-minute increments.
Date: 09/2017
Sponsoring organization: Wisconsin Office of Rural Health
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A Review of Community Benefit Reporting by Critical Access Hospitals in Oregon
Provides background on hospital community benefit reporting, describes issues with under-reporting or over-reporting data, identifies issues associated with federal tax-exemption requirements, and offers conclusions and recommendations.
Author(s): Keith Hearle
Date: 08/2017
Sponsoring organization: Oregon Office of Rural Health
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Coteau des Prairies Keeping Services Close to Home
Follows South Dakota-based Coteau des Prairies Health System's (CDP) progress as part of the Small Rural Hospital Transition (SRHT) project. CDP completed a financial operational assessment (FOA) with the goal of positioning the hospital for future financial success. Primary areas of improvement include revenue cycle management, HCAHPS scores, executive communication, and swing bed utilization.
Additional links: One-Page Summary
Date: 08/2017
Sponsoring organization: National Rural Health Resource Center
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Providing Patient-Centered Enhanced Discharge Planning and Rural Transition Support: Building a Rural Transitions Network Between Regional Referral and Critical Access Hospitals
Details manual procedures used in Western Montana to develop a model to improve the likelihood of a good recovery for patients and decreasing chances of re-hospitalization. Includes a guide to ethical considerations in discharge and rural transition planning.
Author(s): Tom Seekins, Heidi Boehm, Jennifer Wong, Linda Yearous, AnnaJean Smith
Date: 08/2017
Sponsoring organization: University of Montana: Rural Institute for Inclusive Communities
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Improving Access to High Quality Sepsis Care in a South Dakota Emergency Telemedicine Network
Research and policy brief exploring whether emergency department-based telemedicine networks using real-time access to sepsis experts can improve outcomes and decrease variation in care. Discusses a pilot program for Critical Access Hospitals in South Dakota-based Avera Health's 140-hospital network in 12 states. Includes statistics for patients with positive sepsis screens from September 2016 to March 2017.
Author(s): Nicholas M. Mohr, Brian Skow, Amy Wittrock, et al.
Date: 08/2017
Sponsoring organization: Rural Telehealth Research Center
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Rethinking Rural Hospitals
Discusses the various factors associated with rural hospital closures, and makes the case for adopting new, innovative approaches to rural healthcare delivery.
Author(s): Diana J. Mason
Citation: JAMA: Journal of the American Medical Association, 318(2), 114-115
Date: 07/2017
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