Brainstorming

The VRHA conference provides attendees a unique opportunity to get together and share ideas, success and learning experiences. To facilitate those conversations, VRHA is offering three "brainstorming" sessions at the 2011 event:

• Solutions on a Shoestring - share your successes and challenges in seeking grants, soliciting donations, collaborating with community partners, integrating education of health professions students with service delivery, involving faculty and students in projects, utilizing volunteers, and more.
• Health Reform in Rural - overview of the ACA including parts are specific to rural America followed by discussion on how we can help people in our rural communities understand health reform and how it can benefit them.
  
• Creating a Community Network - How does community participation work, and how does it work best? Are communities targets, partners, the best source to find out what they need, or the best beneficiary of impartial eyes? 

Visit the conference website to learn more about this and other sessions.

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Members in the News

VRHA member Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine has been placed on the US News and World Report's "short list" of 10 Least Expensive Private Medical schools. The short list is a regular series that magnifies individual data points in hopes of providing students and parents a way to find which undergraduate or graduate programs excel or have room to grow in specific areas.

Read more about the short list.

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More Members in the News

PBS News Hour is running a series of reports on problems with access to dental care in the U.S. The November 14th broadcast features VRHA member Terry Dickinson discusing the oral health issues encountered at the Grundy Mission of Mercy. Behind Dr. Dickinson is former VRHA intern and current VCU dental student Tarah Coleman!

Watch the video.

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Latino Health Promoters

By NBC29.com

Nine Latino women will graduate from a program that's breaking down language barriers to bring healthcare to the streets of central Virginia. They'll become health promoters in the Hispanic community. These Latino health promoters go to health fairs, migrant camps, and Hispanic-owned businesses to screen people for conditions that can easily be treated and prevented.

Alicia Llamas wants to help her neighbors. She moved from Mexico to live with family in Charlottesville.

Llamas is taking English classes, and now she's one of nine women graduating from the Latino health promoter program. "I have learned a lot and my family members have also been learning with me," she said.

The two-month long training prepares promoters for preventative healthcare. They learn to screen symptoms for diabetes, blood pressure, stress, and cancer. Promoters then report conditions to nurses for follow-ups.

Read the full article.

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Lewis Gale/Carilion Deal

By Jean Jadhon - WDBJ-TV

Two of the regions big healthcare systems have struck a deal that will give some Medicare patients more choices. Patients who are signed up for Carilion's Medicare Advantage Plans will soon have access to LewisGale facilities and doctors.

The new agreement covers services at all four LewisGale hospitals and all eight outpatient centers as well as access to 135 physicians employed by LewisGale. With the addition of LewisGale Regional Health System and its employed physicians and Jefferson Surgical, the Carilion Clinic Medicare Health Plan (CCMHP) network now includes all Carilion Clinic hospitals, the four regional LewisGale hospitals and more than 1100 physicians and other licensed professional providers. Participating LewisGale and Carilion Clinic hospitals include:

• LewisGale Hospitals: LewisGale Medical Center, LewisGale Hospital Alleghany, LewisGale Hospital Montgomery and LewisGale Hospital Pulaski
• Carilion Clinic Hospitals: Bedford Memorial Hospital, Carilion Franklin Memorial Hospital, Carilion Giles Community Hospital, Carilion Stonewall Jackson Hospital, Carilion New River Valley Medical Center, Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital, Carilion Roanoke Community Hospital and Carilion Tazewell Community Hospital
  

Read the full article.

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VCU Celebrates NRHD

Virginia Commonwealth University's Student Family Medicine Association and International / Inner City / Rural Preceptorship (I2CRP) co-sponsored a noon program to celebrate National Rural Health Day.  Dr. Shelley Short is a family physician who works in Sandy Hook, VA, and serves patients in Goochland and Louisa counties.  

During her talk with VCU students Dr. Short shared some of her personal insights about working and living in a rural community.  She discussed the many things she enjoys about patient care and being part of the community.  She also shared some of the challenges she has experienced and a few stories to illustrate her relationships with the patients she serves.  Students had the opportunity to ask questions of Dr. Short and some of the other rural physicians who attended the session.

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Super Committee Fails to Reach Agreement

By David Lee - National Rural Health Association

The Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction announced that it was unable to come to an agreement prior to the November 23 statutory deadline for deficit reduction.

NRHA fought hard to maintain the Critical Access Hospital, Medicare Dependant Hospital, and Sole Community Hospital designations from elimination or large-scale modification. Various proposals called for large modifications to these programs or even the elimination of the designations entirely. With the announcement Monday, we now can be sure that all facilities currently participating in these programs will maintain their reimbursement structures. NRHA members were instrumental in fighting these modifications and their efforts have clearly been successful.

The failure to strike a deal, though, means that a “sequestration” will go into effect January 2013. Included in the sequestration is a two percent cut to Medicare for all providers. During the next year, NRHA will continue its efforts to reverse the across-the-board cuts to rural facilities. These cuts will have a disproportionate affect on fragile safety net facilities and should not be allowed. Federal Medicaid payments will not be affected in the sequestration.

Read the full blog.

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Mobile EMS Lab

By Candi Helseth - Rural Monitor

In the high desert of northern Nevada, Humboldt General Hospital Emergency Medical Services (HGH-EMS) responds to a motor vehicle accident call. Paramedics quickly perform a trauma exam using a portable ultrasound unit to detect internal bleeding or possible blockages and a handheld blood analyzer that returns diagnostic laboratory results in two minutes. Their conclusion: this critically injured patient needs surgery as quickly as possible. The HGH-EMS ground ambulance heads to a Reno trauma center 150 miles away.

Taking ultrasound and lab out in the field improves patient outcomes in rural areas, HGH-EMS Director Pat Songer said. “When we can reduce decision making time in the field, we can bypass a stop at a Critical Access Hospital to make those determinations. It means trauma patients get to a trauma center and into surgery faster, which means they are more likely to survive.”

Read the full article.

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