Rural Spotlight

K2 Synthetic Marijuana Use Among Teenagers and Young Adults in Missouri

Updated information is available on the synthetic marijuana product, K2. Information includes signs and symptoms that present with the use of K2, and recommendations by the Missouri Regional Poison Center.

Click here for more information.

Rural Nursing Residency Programs Becoming Available

Idaho State University is just one location that is now offering a rural nurse residency program. The program is part of an effort to improve competency and retention among nurses. Learn more about the program by clicking here.

How to Stretch Without Breaking

Louis Wenzlow has written a piece on the Critical Access Hospitals and "meaningful" HIT adoption. He says effort needs to be made to support the goal of reducing healthcare costs and increasing healthcare quality. Find the article by clicking here. 

Art Helping Patients Get Better

The Arts in Medicine (AIM) program works to enhance a patient's stay in the hospital through painting, dance, music, acting and other artforms. It has proven to be successful in enriching the lives of hospital patients and improving their physical and mental health. Now AIM programs are starting to crop up in rural hospitals. Check out the following links to learn more about AIM.

Shands Healthcare AIM
Weems Hospital AIM Program
Rural AIM Toolkit

Reducing Avoidable Readmissions

PubHub has made the following report available:

Health Care Leader Action Guide to Reduce Avoidable Readmissions

Outlines a four-step approach to reducing avoidable hospital readmissions. Suggests interventions during hospitalization, at discharge, and post-discharge, including patient and caregiver education, multidisciplinary care coordination, and home visits.

New Ideas for Long Time Rural Health Care Concerns

By: Sarah Jane Stewart, Virginia Rural Health Association

How does a rural hospital administrator tackle the problem of uncompensated care when it’s 15% of his expenses or $15 million in free care?  What do you do in a rural county (population 52,000) where the unemployment rate is 7.9% and 14% are on food stamps?  How do you work with a struggling free clinic and a small community health center located 15 minutes down the road?   How do you arrange for specialty care when there are few specialists in the county, and most are located in the large city 40 minutes away?  

Bill Jacobsen, CEO of Carilion Franklin Memorial Hospital in Rocky Mount, VA, pondered all these questions and organized a conference to explore how to create a comprehensive, coordinated health care system for Franklin County. 

Rural Kids Participating in Dangerous Game

New research suggests kids in rural settings are more likely to play a dangerous choking game that has become popular in recent years.  Around 8,000 eighth graders in Oregon were surveyed for the study.  More than a quarter of them admitted to participating in the act of choking in order to get a feeling of euphoria. 

Read more about the research here. 

Improving Communication when Language Barriers Exist

Improving provider communication is critical to delivering effective care for individuals with limited language proficiency and those who are deaf and hard of hearing. The Joint Commission in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Civil Rights recently released a video demonstrating the importance of providing culturally competent health care to meet the needs of diverse populations.

The US Census Bureau notes that 47 million people speak a language other than English and more than 28 million people have some form of hearing loss, according to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. Health care organizations and providers face challenges in the use of interpreters, translated materials and in caring for an increasingly aging population with possible hearing loss needs.

The video identifies effective and alternative communication strategies and highlights the importance of relevant civil rights legislation, federal and accreditation standards pertaining to language access, in addition to the rights of patients.

Central to the concept of cultural competency is, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, that recognizes equality of health care and services and mandates that all persons regardless of race, color or national origin will not be discriminated against. Failure to provide language access services to Limited English Proficient persons (LEP) for federally funded programs is a form of discrimination. Likewise, similar standards apply under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which protects the rights of individuals with disabilities.

View the video by clicking here.

Health Information Technology in California's Rural Practices: Assessing the Benefits and Barriers

The California HealthCare Foundation has released a report on technology's impact in rural California. A summary of the report follows:

Examines the benefits of and barriers to implementing health information technology such as electronic health records in rural areas, including variations in population, healthcare composition, and communications infrastructure. Includes case studies.

Find the full report here.

Rural Health Providers Also Treat the Economy

It has been shown time and time again that health care providers in rural communities help those communities thrive. The economies of those communities are boosted both directly and indirectly with millions of dollars. The Iowa Independent has chronicled one recent study that supports that idea even more. Read the article here.