Q4400

Rural health is uniquely positioned to model a new cutting-edge health program for wellness, diet and nutrition, exercise, and preventative care because of the reverse migration of many city dwellers to Rural America.

Rural America offers its citizens a way of life with social connections that many who have lived in a big city or the suburbs find missing. Yet, small town America faces the same opioid crisis and surge in mental illness the rest of America faces, and it is devastating.

This will require buy-in from state governments and CMS to design a new reimbursement system to replace the existing Critical Access Hospital Medicare reimbursement formula.

In addition, Rural Health should serve as an incubator for innovation in preventative care.

The new model could include participants from the community who are pre-diabetic, overweight, and have inflammation. Like the PA Rural Health Initiative, each rural hospital should set four transformational goals tied to greater community wellness, improved diet choices and better nutrition, regular exercise, and preventative care.

One of these goals must be to design an effective behavioral health program that mitigates the incidence of opioid abuse in the communities the hospitals serve and also create a responsive new program for those with a mental illness.

The other three goals must address preventative care by monitoring the wellness of study participants to ensure they do not become diabetic, obese, or develop heart disease during the study.

Rural Health has a unique opportunity to lead in health care reform if it does three things:

1)Broadens its menu of services to include a new focus on preventative care, something CEO Michael Dowling of the 23-hospital system Northwell Health calls “Upstream Medicine’’

2)Works with CMS to create a new reimbursement model for rural hospitals that reimburses hospitals for preventing Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and obesity

3)Creates a partnership with state farmers, food manufacturers, and the federal government to grow more organic foods that do not cause inflammation, the number one cause of all disease

Community loyalty flows naturally from patient-centered care and active participation by hospital senior leadership in community affairs and events. Providing additional retail services will ensure rural residents do not drive 50 miles to the nearest Medical Center to access care they could have received at their hometown rural hospital.

In addition, forging referral partnerships with big-city Medical Centers for patients who require a surgical procedure that is unavailable at the rural hospital or for tele-health services when appropriate, especially ICU and CCU patient consults, is smart.

Individual rural hospitals should custom design their own behavioral health programs to address the opioid crisis and treat those who have a new mental illness effectively. The goal is to prevent opioid addiction and teach (coach) those who have an addiction on how to live a recovery wellness life.

Rural Health leaders tend to be entrepreneurial because budget dollars are tight in Rural Health. Leaders should not be bashful about touting their good patient outcomes and patient safety metrics for many DRG’s, including surgeries, when they are as good as many larger facilities in cities and suburbia.

Finally, Rural Health in general does a good job building community pride in its hospitals where friends and neighbors work. Honing the patient engagement strategy, delivering the Gold Standard of Care, and building relationships and connections with residents and business owners in the communities you serve all contribute to community loyalty to the hospital.

Transitioning from treating disease to preventing it will not be an easy or quick process, yet it is a worthy endeavor because it will revolutionize the American health care system and enhance the benefit of choosing to live in rural America.

No demographic is positioned more favorably than Rural America and Rural Health despite the number of rural facilities that have closed in the past 5 years. Rural Health is ready to step-up.

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