Rural Health and the GA

There are many people who understand state-level policy development. There are many people who understand rural health. How many people understand both?

Delegate T. Scott Garrett, MD, will be the keynote speaker for the 2011 VRHA Annual Conference. Dr. Garrett represents Virginia’s 23rd House District and serves on the Finance, Transportation and Health, Welfare and Institutions committees. He has practiced as a general surgeon in the Lynchburg area since 1989, including distinguished service to the Johnson Health Center, the Free Clinic of Central Virginia, the Lynchburg Health Department and the Central Virginia Training Center.

Dr. Garrett will discuss rural health from his unique perspective as both a physician and an elected official, including how the changing political and economic environment will affect health and healthcare in the future and how the Virginia General Assembly could address these issues.

Click the conference logo for more information about Dr. Garrett and other sessions.

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The Clock is Ticking

The 2011 VRHA Annual Conference will be held at the Stonewall Jackson Hotel and Conference Center in Staunton, VA.

VRHA has rooms set aside at the discounted rate of $77/night for the conference. You must reserve by November 8th to ensure a room at this rate.

To register, call the hotel (866-880-0024) and ask for the Virginia Rural Health Association rate or register online.

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Scholarship Winners!

VRHA is proud to announce that scholarships for the VRHA Conference have been awarded to:

Catharine Carty - University of Virginia School of Nursing, MSN Clinical Nurse Leader

Ryan Marie Diduk - Old Dominion University, PhD Health Services Research

Nathan A. Rosso - Virginia Commonwealth University, Post Baccalaureate Pre-Health Certificate

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A 'Wise' Use of Telehealth

The use of telehealth services is expanding rapidly in southwestern Virginia, and Verizon is helping The University of Virginia's College at Wise lead the way by keeping its nursing curriculum up to speed with the technology.

A $20,000 Verizon Foundation grant is funding the development of one of Virginia's first telehealth nursing curricula at the Department of Nursing at UVa-Wise. The project is a partnership among UVa-Wise, the Healthy Appalachia Institute and the University of Virginia Office of Telemedicine.

Telehealth is emerging as a critical resource, enabling care to be provided to patients in rural locations such as Southwest Virginia by increasing access to specialty consultations, providing home monitoring, and helping to alleviate significant workforce shortages in primary and specialty health care fields.

The project's goal, preparing nurses with the knowledge and skills required to maximize the use of emerging and evolving telehealth technologies to improve health care access and services, is being implemented in the college's nursing curriculum this fall. The project also includes a regional telehealth symposium for practicing health care professionals, which will address crucial topics such as the ways in which telemedicine fits into patient and community health care to emerging uses of telehealth.

Read the full article.

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Close to Home

By Franz Strasser - BBC News

The city of Logan in West Virginia has just 1,779 citizens. The nearest large city, Charleston, is an hour away, via winding roads through the Appalachian mountains. Logan is surrounded by rural land, and is in an area which has lost half its population since the 1950s. It's a far cry from just about anything that would attract an affluent doctor from overseas. And yet they come.

The US Department of Health designates 51 out of 55 counties in the state as "medically under-served areas". Logan County is among them, and that is precisely why doctors from all parts of the world fill the hallways of Logan Regional Medical Center.

"I would never even have considered West Virginia when I was training back in New Jersey," says Dr Ziad Salem, who has been working in Logan for more than five years.

Born in Beirut, Dr Salem grew up in Paris and went to medical school in Los Angeles. A job in a rural area was the only chance to stay in the US, but Logan was not his only option. Hospitals and state agencies have to compete to get the best foreign-born doctors to their part of the country.

Read the full article.

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Broadband and Health IT Survey

A mesage from Karen R. Jackson, Deputy Secretary of Technology

On behalf of the Commonwealth of Virginia's Secretaries of Health and Human Resources and Technology and the Center for Innovative Technology, I appreciate your healthcare organization’s willingness to participate in the second annual online Broadband and Health Information Technology (IT) Usage Survey. We ask that you forward this e-mail, which contains a live link to the survey (below), to your members and encourage their participation.
 
The annual survey helps us identify important gaps in broadband access, provide trend data related to how gaps are closing, and illustrate how health IT initiatives are being enabled and implemented over time. Your members’ responses will also be used by the Commonwealth to target federal broadband funding opportunities in support of identified health IT priorities. Over 350 healthcare providers participated in the survey last year, leading to the creation of the Commonwealth of Virginia’s first interactive health IT broadband availability map.

We know you are busy, so we designed the survey to be completed in approximately 5 minutes. We ask that you complete the survey no later than November 4, 2011.

Click here to start the survey or contact Broad Axe Technology Partners with any questions or concerns you may have.

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Rural Kids Face Different Health Challenges

By the Rural Assistance Center

Children in rural areas are more likely to face different challenges to their health and have less access to care when compared with children in urban areas, according to a new report from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). The National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH): The Health and Well-Being of Children in Rural Areas: A Portrait of the Nation in 2007, which is published every four years, examined the overall health of rural children in the United States from birth to 17 years. The report finds greater prevalence of certain physical, emotional, behavioral and developmental conditions in rural areas.

Based on a national survey of parents, the report presents information on children’s health status, and their access to and use of health care services as measured through their parents’ reports. It considers children’s body mass index, social skills and behaviors and the presence of one or more chronic conditions. Aspects of the environment that were assessed in the survey include family structure, poverty level, parental health and well-being and community surroundings.

Read the full article.

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Trading Debt for Service

By JoNel Aleccia - msnbc.com

Sarah Baker drives 130 miles round-trip every weekday from her home in Bismarck, N.D., to her job as the sole provider of primary healthcare in McClusky, N.D. -- population 500.

“I’m it,” says the 49-year-old family nurse practitioner, whose duties have ranged from an office visit for a 2-day-old newborn to a surgical session with a 75-year-old man who nearly lost an ear in a fall down an elevator shaft.

Baker has held her position at the Northland Community Health Center for three years, thanks in large part to a growing federal program that will pay off some $34,000 in nursing school debt in exchange for her rural work.

Read the full article.

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HPSA/MUA Recommendations

By Alan Morgan - NRHA Blog

Do we know where the Health Profession Shortage Areas (HPSAs) and Medically Underserved Areas (MUAs) are located in the United States? Perhaps. But for now, we will need to wait until the Government tells us where they are going to be located in the future.

On October 13th, the Negotiated Rulemaking Committee for the Designations of HSPAs and MUAs approved a report to the Secretary of HHS with methodology for identifying shortage areas.

This report was approved by a vote of 21-2 (5 members were not present and did not vote). Under the Negotiated Rulemaking Act of 1990, a unanimous recommendation by the committee was necessary for the Department of Health and Human Services to publish the committee’s recommendations verbatim as the interim rule. However, because the recommendation was not unanimous, the Secretary MAY use our recommendation only as “guidance” in developing an interim final rule.

Read the full article.

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