Richard Watson is an emergency medicine physician.

Improving access to care in rural America: Keeping rural hospitals in the game

Policy
September 11, 2022

Almost 20 percent of America’s population lives in rural areas of the country, where accessing health care facilities and services can be challenging. The patient-to-primary care physician ratio in rural areas is only 39.8 physicians per 100,000 residents, compared to 53.3 physicians in urban areas.

Rural hospitals work diligently to meet the health needs of the populations they serve, but they have long struggled with staffing shortages, inconsistent patient volumes, …

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Improving access to care in rural America: Keeping rural hospitals in the game

Changing the game plan: COVID’s second half

Conditions
February 1, 2022

Recently, I was on several calls concerning the precipitous rise of COVID-19 cases and the burden to the health care system. There’s no doubt that we are at a point where challenges become crisis, and crisis becomes collapse. The constant influx of “breaking news” into our psyche has blunted any ability to decipher the nuances of this escalation.

But as this is not our first go-round, most stakeholders have already exhausted …

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Changing the game plan: COVID’s second half