The Dawn of a Rural Health Care Renaissance
As a partner to rural providers across the nation, on occasion MEDHOST has the opportunity to speak with various thought leaders who can comment on the current climate of rural health. Recently, we sat down with National Rural Health Association’s (NRHA) Chief Executive Officer Alan Morgan to get his thoughts on rural health care in America, where it is and where it is going.
He also shared with us valuable insights as to what NRHA is doing to push rural health care into the national spotlight, along with some thoughts on how, as an industry, we can help strengthen the heart of rural communities.
MH: Tell us a little bit about yourself, your experience, and how you got involved with NRHA? What are you currently focusing on to support rural health or rural hospitals?
Alan: I've been with the National Rural Health Association since 2001. My background is in health policy. I'm originally from a small town in Northeast Kansas, and for me, I think it's always been my passion to ensure that there's a future for rural Americans, making sure that they have health care access within their communities. It's been a great fit.
At NRHA, our focus is on the community, and how we make sure that we have a healthy vibrant rural America moving forward–for those people that want to perhaps move back to rural America and for kids growing up in rural towns across America. We don’t want them to have to leave their communities. We want them to have an opportunity to stay and to thrive.
MH: What are some of the core challenges faced by NRHA and those advocating for rural health care as a bigger mechanism of support for the greater rural community?
Alan: We talk a lot about how we’d like to see policy changed, but to do that you have to highlight the shortcomings and obstacles, right? I think a lot of times we focus in on what rural health care doesn't have or what needs to be changed. Often, what gets overlooked is all the innovation that's happening and the assets of rural health care.
MH: That’s an interesting point—the unseen contributions rural hospitals make on the larger scale of health care delivery. Can you elaborate on that?
Alan: I think it’s a story that's not well told or well understood, but in many cases, rural America is what's driving health care redesign now, as we're seeing in our nation.
Almost any substantial innovation in the health care delivery system over the last 20 years has a beginning in rural health. Most notably, telehealth, telemedicine, and teleconsultation. All this is addressing workforce shortages, most notably shortages in specialty care. A lot of the innovation on that, and the driving force behind it, comes from rural providers.
Workforce shortages gave rise to concepts like patient navigators and community health workers. Dental health aides—that concept took off in rural Alaska. The basic concept of a medical home model is primarily seen in rural areas.
When you talk about the move towards accountable care organizations—trying to promote a community approach to health care and working with chronic care management—to some regard, that has already been occurring at some level in a rural context.
These things happen because of the financial pressures rural providers are facing, the workforce shortages, and the level of health disparities. That's why, when we talk at a national level, it's important not to just push rural providers to the side, but to lead with them and build awareness. Especially when we're talking about new models of care, new reimbursement payments, and new systems of care overall.
MH: You mentioned that the story of rural health care is somewhat marginalized and that the bigger story is not being told. Why is that story being carved out of the full narrative of American health care?
Alan: It comes down to a misconception of what rural health is. I think a lot of times people think access to resources and specialty care are the gold standard of what constitutes great health care. When you look at the quality measures from the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid (CMS), in a rural context of basic primary care, those measures are often better than their urban counterparts.
Rural hospitals are very capable of delivering high quality health care services, as opposed to thinking ... Oh, well this is a smaller, and smaller hospital equates to less than…Smaller doesn't always equal less.
When you see your patients shopping at the grocery store, you know what they're eating. It's easy to recognize why they're experiencing health care issues—that community knowledge lends itself to a better understanding, and in many cases, a better health care partnership between provider and the patient.
MH: Rural hospitals, in a way, are defining the standards for a great patient experience. How do you begin to share that message and tell those stories with a wider audience?
Alan: Telling those stories is a huge part of our mission, but there is also a grassroots effort at the community level. At NRHA we have a strong focus on maintaining access to rural hospitals because for most of these communities, the hospitals are usually the second largest employer behind the school system.
They provide that 24/7 emergency room service, and that's really key, not so much just having a hospital building, but being able to know that if something goes wrong, you have a resource within your community.
MH: In terms of education, how are you working to build awareness around the value of rural health care and educate facilities on what they can do to become more sustainable? How do you get people focused on the core message?
Alan: I think it really is getting our successful models out there and communicating their stories. We try to make sure that you have peers talking to peers-that’s the reason NRHA exists.
There are a lot of other organizations that deal with health care, but we’re focused on rural relevant models. What we need is our successful practitioners and community leaders sharing their stories because then people see the validity. They see this can be our community. Approaching education from a peer-to-peer model—sharing and explaining is important.
Education is at the forefront for us. We have these conferences, and we'll have hospital CEOs get up and talk about their story and all the success, but we really need them to get to the meat of it. What are you doing? What were your challenges? How did you overcome them? Then tell us about the results. Once they get to that component people can then say, "Oh, yeah. That can work in my community too, or with this tweak, I can make that happen."
A lot of the times the audience ends up being primarily successful administrators and successful physicians, they come to these educational conferences, and the good get great. The hospitals and the clinicians that are really struggling, that really need that education, they say, "Well, I don't have time for that." That's one of the reasons why we focus so much on the webinars and what we communicate to our rural partners.
How can we get them to make this trip to share success with their peers? How do we reach them in the community?—that's an ongoing challenge…
MH: In working with some of our customers with similar stories, we've learned a lot in terms of, if the hospital goes down the community goes down. What are your thoughts on the domino effect of a hospital closing?
Alan: We receive a lot of recognition from our membership for our work on the state level and the federal level, both, in policy development and advocacy. However, from an organizational level, the most important thing that we do is connect rural relevant products and business solutions to local providers, whether they'd be physicians, or hospital CEOs, or clinicians. We do this to make sure that there's an immediate partnership that can help sustain health care within that community. You can't oversell the importance of good partnerships between business solutions and the local providers.
MH: A thriving rural community—that goes back to what you touched on about the economic impact of rural hospitals. How can rural hospitals take a step beyond their doors to support their community in ways that will improve the quality of life and quality of care?
Alan: That’s such a key topic because that is where the health care system is going. A lot of rural CEOs already know health care is moving outside their walls. The payment systems and the changes happening within the payment systems are pushing that along.
Rural hospitals need to start thinking of themselves as community connectors. How can they work with Meals on Wheels, the senior citizen center, a local primary care physician, and other community leaders to improve the overall health of their community?
As payment changes come from the Medicare, Medicaid, and private payers there's going to be this continued shift in financial support for hospitals and health systems. They need to start looking outside of inpatient services to see what they can do to improve overall health statuses.
MH: Speaking of changes coming down the line, what does the future in rural health care in America look like to you? What do you think we can look forward to? Any challenges NRHA may perceive going forward?
Alan: I'm very optimistic about the future of health care, and so is the National Rural Health Association, primarily because of the changing demographics of America, and what we're seeing in population trends. For the last four years, we've seen population increases in rural America. As broadband expands, people have the option to live where they want to live, and work where they want to work, and from a national perspective, that is rural America.
The concept that rural may be dying just simply isn't true. You've got a rural renaissance happening, and there's no reason to expect that won't continue.
We're finally seeing systems of care and payment methodologies that are rural relevant. New concepts, such as global budgeting, recognize that health care systems within a rural community need to work together to keep the community healthy. These types of trends, coupled with emerging technologies, both in telehealth and mobile technology, allow the practitioners to become partners with the patients.
Health care hospitals of the future are not going to look like hospitals today. Care will occur outside the walls, and it's going to be in collaboration with other health care entities and outside the health care sector.
NRHA commissioned the above piece from MEDHOST, a trusted NRHA partner, for publication within the Association’s Rural Health Voices blog. See the original article.