Getting Care to Rural America: Obstacles & Progress
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Rural Americans have limited access to healthcare services, social services, and many other conveniences of modern society due to their distance from major population hubs. Additionally, the lack of adequate access to care often comes down to the simple fact that there aren’t enough social and healthcare workers to provide all of the necessary services. However, despite these setbacks, rural Americans are starting to gain more access to care than ever before due to new technologies that make distance less of an issue.
How Rural Populations Can Be Served Better
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Barriers to accessing healthcare services puts rural communities at a disadvantage when it comes to maintaining overall good health. Rural Americans should be able to have the same access to services that those living in urban centers have, such as primary care, dental care, behavioral health, emergency care, and public health services. Providing good healthcare access to rural communities helps to improve overall physical, social, and mental health, as well as improve quality of life, prevent disease, and increase life expectancy.
Rural populations can be better served in a variety of ways. Providers in rural communities should try to gain cultural awareness about people in the area to better understand why certain locals are less likely to seek treatment than others. This can also help them learn how to get them the care they need.
Another great way that rural communities can see an improvement in access to treatment is to have more nurse practitioners go to these areas, providing clinical services that are necessary for a long and healthy life. In many states that have large rural populations like Idaho, North Dakota, and Wyoming, nurse practitioners can perform many of the same duties that a physician would in urban areas. This includes providing diagnoses, treating illnesses, and prescribing and dispensing medication.
Urban populations face their own healthcare challenges, but rural communities are often woefully lacking in medical professionals that provide specialized treatment for more serious illnesses. While those living in urban areas might have an easier time engaging in medical tourism if they aren’t receiving appropriate levels of healthcare, rural communities don’t typically have the same luxury. Ultimately, preventative healthcare should be a priority in rural areas in order to hopefully prevent as much disease and injury as possible.
The Rise of Telehealth
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Telehealth has been especially effective in rural areas. It has had a hand in closing the gap in healthcare for rural communities. While the average wait time to see a doctor across the country is 2.5 weeks, telehealth technologies have helped to significantly reduce that wait, opening up the world of advanced healthcare to those who would not have had access or would have needed to wait extended periods of time. Rural areas have also been transitioning away from dial-up internet, as broadband access has also steadily increased over the last decade, providing communities with the ability to engage in telehealth like never before.
Telehealth not only helps bridge the distance gap between patient and provider to improve health in rural areas, but it’s also financially beneficial to both as well. Small rural hospitals are under tremendous financial pressure simply due to the nature of how insurance operates, which also inhibits them from hiring more staff. This further compounds healthcare access issues that rural communities face. Telehealth solves this issue by rendering the need to hire specialists to physically work within a hospital or clinic less essential, bringing quality specialists to literally anywhere that has access to the internet.
Telehealth can be used as a tool to remotely monitor patients who have recently been discharged from the hospital to ensure that their recovery is going well. Additionally, it can also help those suffering from behavioral or mental health issues who avoid seeking traditional medical help due to the social stigma or cost involved. Telehealth will eventually completely close the healthcare gap that rural communities currently suffer, as we are bound to continue to develop and implement it.
Maintaining Privacy
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While rural hospitals and clinics are generally able to easily maintain HIPAA compliance in regards to shredding medical records because of their smaller size, they may have a harder time avoiding violations in this fast-paced, technological era. Remaining compliant to HIPAA regulations becomes far more difficult as rural healthcare providers begin to implement new healthcare technologies such as telehealth and cloud-based record management. Patient privacy is of utmost importance, so a focus on ensuring compliance in rural areas should become a priority.
Though storing patient information in the cloud may introduce new risks in regards to potential HIPAA violation, the benefits of cloud computing far outweigh the risks. The cloud has made a serious impact in the healthcare field by streamlining and optimizing practices for storing and accessing patient records. This is helping providers to update and quickly share their knowledge and improve overall access to care. This is especially important in rural areas, as the need for specialized healthcare knowledge often relies on these new technologies.
Many rural hospitals experience difficulties related to the resources and staff expertise required to implement health IT programs properly. This poses a challenge in remaining HIPAA compliant. When healthcare IT systems are not appropriately maintained, patient information can be easily lost or stolen. Rural communities already tend to know quite a bit about their neighbors — and most likely don’t want to share every intimate detail about their health with one another.
For those living in rural areas, healthcare was at one time considered a luxury. However, with the advent of new technologies that connect the world at large, distance is no longer an issue. Access to proper healthcare services should be a fundamental right for rural communities.
