Rural

Press Release Rodney Nelson Receives AHA’s Rural Hospital Leadership Award Rodney Nelson, president and CEO of Mackinac Straits Health System, Inc. in St. Ignace, Mich., is the recipient of the American Hospital Association’s (AHA) Rural Hospital Leadership Award. The award recognizes small or…
A health system in rural Minnesota has helped develop an innovative model to prevent prescription drug and opioid abuse. Staff at CHI St. Gabriel's Health in Little Falls, Minn., began researching the issue after noticing that a large number of patients in the emergency department were requesting…
“Small changes can make a big difference.” So say health care professionals working to prevent adverse drug events at Labette Health in Parsons, Kan. The 99-bed rural hospital joined the AHA/HRET Hospital Engagement Network in 2012, working to reduce all ADEs by 40 percent by year-end…
Using Patient Navigators and Education to Improve Post-Acute Transitions
One patient safety tool can be used in all care and service areas, improving safety and quality for every patient at little or no cost: the safety huddle. At Bassett Medical Center, a 180-bed hospital in Cooperstown, NY, staff developed a safety huddle program and are “making it stick.…
On Feb. 12, as urged by the AHA, CMS released a recertification guidance and checklist to state survey agency directors indicating that states may immediately use alternative ways to document that a critical access hospital is a necessary provider.
Every day, hospitals are successfully meeting challenges and providing quality care in their communities. The patient population at Manchester (Ky.) Memorial Hospital is largely illiterate. Though the 63-bed community hospital ensures that all materials sent home with patients are written at a…
Medicare and other federal programs must account for the special circumstances of rural communities.
Baseball managers tinker with team lineups to improve results on the field, and hospitals can do the same with health care teams. At WVU Hospitals, in Morgantown, W.V., physicians and medical residents teamed up to see their patients at the hospital's outpatient clinic, within 7 to 14 days after…
Sinai Health System, Chicago, “Helping Adults Breathe and Thrive: A Healthy Homes Approach to Improving Respiratory Health of Adults with Asthma.” In one year, the program reduced asthma-related emergency department visits by 66 PERCENT, hospitalizations by 57 percent and participants' daytime…