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Rural Health
Resources by Topic: Specialty care

Using Telemedicine to Increase Access, Improve Care in Rural Communities
Examines Avera Health, an integrated delivery system based in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to highlight how telehealth can be used to improve access in rural areas. Avera offers "eEmergency" telehealth services to more than 130 rural hospitals and "ePharmacy" services to roughly 75 rural hospitals, and other telehealth services. Discusses Avera's expansion into other areas where provider recruitment may be difficult, including prisons, schools, and long-term care facilities.
Author(s): Sarah Klein, Martha Hostetter
Citation: Transforming Care: Reporting on Health System Improvement
Date: 03/2017
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Commonwealth Fund
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Rural Promising Practice Issue Brief: Rural OsteoPorosis Evaluation Service (ROPES)
Highlights the Rural Osteoporosis Evaluation Service (ROPES) as a promising practice for evaluating and treating osteoporosis in rural veterans. Features implementation information and results from the Durham VAMC in North Carolina.
Additional links: Overview
Date: 02/2017
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Veterans Health Administration's Office of Rural Health
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Rural Promising Practice Issue Brief: GRECC Connect Project: Connecting Rural Providers with Geriatric Specialists Through Telemedicine
Describes the efforts of the Department of Veterans Affairs to support the rural elderly veteran population through implementation of telemedicine services originating at Geriatric Research, Education, and Clinical Centers (GRECCs).
Date: 02/2017
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Veterans Health Administration's Office of Rural Health
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Project Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes (ECHO) in Multiple Sclerosis: Increasing Clinician Capacity
Reports on a pilot program conducted by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and faculty from the University of Washington School of Medicine using the Project Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes (Project ECHO) model. Determines if the Project Echo model was a viable option to support the capacity of clinicians in rural areas to effectively treat patients with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) in underserved areas.
Author(s): Kurt L. Johnson, Deborah Hertz, Gary Stobbe, et al.
Citation: International Journal of MS Care, 9(6), 283–289
Date: 2017
Type: Document
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Does Your State Face Rural Area Provider Shortages?
Shares the percentage of each state's population living in a rural county, along with the following rural and urban healthcare workforce statistics: number of specialists per 100,000 population, number of primary care providers per 100,000 population, and the percent of counties that are wholly designated primary care health professional shortage areas (HPSAs).
Date: 2017
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Healthcare Value Hub
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Wisconsin Physicians: Distribution by Specialty, Demographics, Population to Provider Ratios, Retirement
Provides detailed data on Wisconsin's physicians by specialty for different health service areas. Includes information summarized by region, and by urban and rural service area.
Date: 11/2016
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Wisconsin Area Health Education Center System
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Listening to the Patient: Women Veterans' Insights About Health Care Needs, Access, and Quality in Rural Areas
Presents a study on rural women veterans' experiences accessing quality healthcare. Focus group results highlight issues pertaining to access to oral and mental healthcare, community-based supports services, and gender-specific care in rural communities.
Author(s): Elizabeth Brooks, Nancy K. Dailey, Byron D. Bair, Jay H. Shore
Citation: Military Medicine, 181(9), 976-981
Date: 09/2016
Type: Document
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Geographic Accessibility of Pulmonologists for Adults with COPD
Examines county-level geographic access to pulmonologists for adults with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). Includes statistics describing the distance in miles to a pulmonologist or primary care physician for adults living in rural areas. Figure 1 overlays locations of pulmonologists with county estimates of adults with COPD. Figure 2 overlays the locations of primary care physician locations with county estimates of adults with COPD.
Author(s): Janet B. Croft, Hua Lu, Xingyou Zhang, James B. Holt
Citation: Chest, 150(3), 544-553
Date: 09/2016
Type: Document
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The Graduate Medical Education System and Physician Supply in Texas
Reports on the number of primary care and specialty physicians in Texas. Identifies the medical specialties at critical shortage levels and the rural and urban locations of physician specialists. Looks at the overall supply of physicians in the state, the relevancy of the graduate medical education (GME) system, and the ability of the GME system to meet the current and future healthcare needs in Texas.
Additional links: Addendum to the Graduate Medical Education System and Physician Supply in Texas
Date: 07/2016
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Texas Health and Human Services
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Providing Cardiology Care in Rural Areas Through Visiting Consultant Clinics
Examines impact of cardiology outreach clinics in 96 predominantly rural Iowa cities in 2014. Includes a map showing clinic sites and a table of mean one-way travel times with breakdowns by urban area, large rural city, small rural town, isolated rural town, and all rural census tracts.
Author(s): Thomas S. Gruca, Tae-Hyung Pyo, Gregory C. Nelson
Citation: Journal of the American Heart Association, 5(7)
Date: 06/2016
Type: Document
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