ViewPoints Blog

The Chartis Center for Rural Health (CCRH) team is proud to partner with the National Organization of State Offices of Rural Health (NOSORH) to celebrate National Rural Health Day on November 17th.  As part of this celebration of rural health, we’ve teamed up with iVantage Health Analytics to recognize top performance in quality, outcomes, patient perspectives and financial stability.

With the onset of the PPACA, a Republican Congress and Senate, and a Presidential election looming, the future of rural healthcare promises more uncertainty. Secretary Burwell’s announcement and further reform proposals to Medicare payments specific to hips and knee cases continues to push from the historic volume-based model.

As you may have seen, iVantage was an active sponsor and participant at the Rural Medicine Hackathon, held last weekend in Montana. We think it was a unique opportunity to help rural healthcare providers and our clients advance new solutions. But how?

At this week’s Rural Health Policy Institute in Washington, DC, we presented key findings from our INDEX analysis regarding hospital closures. Forty-seven rural hospitals have closed since the beginning of the decade and in October, we leveraged the Hospital Strength INDEX to evaluate these 47 hospital closures and developed the Vulnerability Index™ with NRHA.

Last week, HHS Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell announced ambitious plans to move from “volume to value in Medicare payments” by accelerating the share of Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) payments that are tied to quality and value and reimbursed through alternative payment models. For rural hospitals in America, the implementation of Medicare’s Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) program has long loomed as a financial time bomb.

The challenges and uncertainty surrounding rural healthcare are well-documented. And having participated at various events this year – from the Rural Health Policy Institute to the NRHA and NOSORH annual conferences and many regional events – I am excited to see that there’s a real sense of collaboration and commitment to solving these complex issues.

Your Voice, Louder. The NRHA's slogan rang loud and true last week at the 2014 CAH Conference in Kansas City. Given the mounting challenges in the rural health community, it was no surprise that the regulatory and industry updates delivered Maggie Elehwany, NRHA, and Priya Bathija, AHA, were the focal point for an anxious crowd.

Did you know that by reducing the anxiety your patients feel when they enter your facility helps in their perception of their visit? Reducing anxiety makes patients feel like they are being treated by people who truly care about them.