Rethinking Rural Health Solutions To Save Patients And Communities
Hospitals have long been linchpins of rural communities, providing jobs as well as health care. But policy analysts say some hospitals may have to change or close to better serve rural health needs.
Heidi Schultz grew up traveling from one end of South Dakota to the other, tagging along as her sister saw doctors and specialists in the "big cities" to treat her diabetes.
Schultz thought she knew rural America well when she took a position as a rural health care program officer for the Helmsley Charitable Trust in Wyoming and Montana.
But even she has been surprised by how she can drive hours on country highways seeing few cars and just "a handful of gravel driveways going somewhere you can't see."
"It's almost scary," says. "You're thinking, 'If something happened to me here on this road now, how long would it take for someone to get to me? An
