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UnitedHealth Group Releases A Somewhat Inadequate Report On Modernizing Rural Health Care

The UnitedHealth Center for Health Reform and Modernization released a white paper today on Modernizing Rural Health Care.  To quote from the UHG presser,

  • [The paper] projects an increase of around 5 million newly insured rural residents by 2019 – even as the number of physicians in rural America lags
  • Quality of care is rated lower in rural areas in 7 out of every 10 health care markets; both physicians and consumers in rural areas more likely to rate quality of care lower than those in urban and suburban markets
  • Innovations in care delivery – particularly telemedicine and telehealth – can absorb future strain on rural health care systems

The paper inventories the current state of health care for the 50 million Americans living in a rural setting — and it’s not pretty.  The question, of course, is why does rural health compare unfavorably to urban health metrics, and what can be done to improve matters? Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at HealthBlawg :: David Harlow's Health Care Law Blog*

Locally Grown Medical Students More Likely To Stick Around

Nearly a third of medical graduates at the University of North Dakota continue in primary care, down from nearly half just two years ago. This is the university that leads the nation for the percentage of students (about 20 percent) choosing family medicine.

North Dakota overall will be short about 160 physicians by 2025, and the need is now affecting urban areas as well as rural ones, said Joshua Wynne, FACP, dean of the university’s School of Medicine and Health Sciences.

Keeping medical students interested in practicing primary care in rural America depends upon whom medical schools choose to admit. For example, one-fourth of the University of North Dakota’s student population hails from small towns, and 80 percent are in-state.

More and more medical schools are looking at locally grown talent to fill their residencies, believing that these students are more likely to stay after graduation. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*

Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…

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How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…

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Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

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The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

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Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

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