By the Numbers: Rural Emergency Department Usage

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) reported recently that Emergency Department (ED) usage was 39 percent higher for Americans living in rural areas compared to those living in urban areas (515 visits versus 372 visits per 1,000 adults). Well over half of these vists are typically non-emergent. It points to the need for primary care expansion in rural America.  In the mean time, hospital ED's in rural and frontier areas of our country are treasured assets that need protection.

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Lame Duck for your Turkey Day Break

[caption id="attachment_650" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Following White House tradition, President Barack Obama Officially Pardons Courage the Turkey - 2009"][/caption] Happy Turkey week everyone! With the elections over and the lame duck session the only thing left between Congressional staff and their Christmas break, here's a brief update of what's going on inside the beltway: Senate The Senate, on Friday, passed its temporary fix...

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Identifying Health Professional Shortage and Medically Underserved Areas

The Health Resources and Services Administration's negotiated rulemaking committee to reconsider health professional shortage area (HPSA) and medically underserved area (MUA) reconvened in Washington DC this week. Roughly 60 hours of committee work has now been completed, and many, many hours ahead before we submit our first report to the Secretary of HHS in March 2011. To date the committee has tentatively agreed that there should be HPSAs, MUA/MUPs designations going forward. (The...

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Rural Health Care Equals Rural Jobs

by Tim Size, Executive Director, Rural Wisconsin Health Cooperative, Sauk CityBeyond deceit and name calling on both sides, our recent election was about jobs. For some it was about not having a job. For many more, it was about the fear of losing one.  The election was also about huge government deficits. The stage is now set for a hard tug of war between job creation and deficit reduction. As politics and policies compete after the election, we who care about rural health must speak up.  We...

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The results are in...what does it mean for rural?

Depending on where you come in on the political scale, this week's election results were either demoralizing, encouraging, or maybe even a little of both.  Democrats all around the country faced a tough election night, and that fact was just as if not more apparent in rural America. The bulk of the Democratic House, Senate and Governors races took place in the Midwest, South and interior western states such as Utah and Nevada. In fact, the Democrats failed to win a seat in any one of the 11...

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