Rural Medicine Crisis, 2009

Jon Bailey of The Center for Rural Affairs in Lyons, Nebraska, recently highlighted in the center's newsletter this past February a top 10 list of health care issues facing rural America today.
This list is not an all inclusive identification of issues but I must say it is right on the mark. Many of the issues I have been managing for the last 9 months at Nature Coast Regional Health System are related to Bailey's list.
The top 10 list is as follows:

1. An economy based on self-employment and small businesses
2. A growing dependence on and need for public health insurance plans
3. A stressed rural health care delivery system
4. A healthcare provider and workforce shortage
5. An aging rural population
6. A sicker and more at risk population
7. A need for disease prevention, health promotion and wellness resources
8. A lack of mental health services
   
9. A rising dependency on health technology
10. An effective emergency medical system

My days as the chief medical officer for our health system in Williston, Florida are spent managing all of these issues and more. Healthcare Stewardship is my attempt to bring the classroom to the shop floor and improve health care delivery in a small rural community.
I remind everybody who works on our team that "it is what it is". We must work smarter and not necessarily harder in order to provide our patients with the patient-centered medical home they so readily deserve. The patient is our center of the universe and our focus on the patient cannot waiver even during the most trying of times.
Dr. Dale