- Telehealth Study Recruiting Veterans Now
- USDA Delivers Immediate Relief to Farmers, Ranchers and Rural Communities Impacted by Recent Disasters
- Submit Nominations for Partnership for Quality Measurement (PQM) Committees
- Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation of the Medicare Program (Executive Order 14192) - Request for Information
- Dr. Mehmet Oz Shares Vision for CMS
- CMS Refocuses on its Core Mission and Preserving the State-Federal Medicaid Partnership
- Social Factors Help Explain Worse Cardiovascular Health among Adults in Rural Vs. Urban Communities
- Reducing Barriers to Participation in Population-Based Total Cost of Care (PB-TCOC) Models and Supporting Primary and Specialty Care Transformation: Request for Input
- Secretary Kennedy Renews Public Health Emergency Declaration to Address National Opioid Crisis
- Secretary Kennedy Renews Public Health Emergency Declaration to Address National Opioid Crisis
- 2025 Marketplace Integrity and Affordability Proposed Rule
- Rural America Faces Growing Shortage of Eye Surgeons
- NRHA Continues Partnership to Advance Rural Oral Health
- Comments Requested on Mobile Crisis Team Services: An Implementation Toolkit Draft
- Q&A: What Are the Challenges and Opportunities of Small-Town Philanthropy?
‘It’s Gone Haywire’: When COVID-19 Arrived in Rural America
DAWSON, Ga. (AP) — The reverend approached the makeshift pulpit and asked the Lord to help him make some sense of the scene before him: two caskets, side by side, in a small-town cemetery busier now than ever before.
Rev. Willard O. Weston had already eulogized other neighbors lost to COVID-19, and he would do more. But this one stood as a symbol to him of all they had lost. The pair of caskets, one powder blue, one white and gold, contained a couple married 30 years who died two days apart, at separate hospitals hours from each other, unaware of the other’s fate.
The day was dark. There was no wind, not even a breeze. It felt to some like the earth had paused for this.
As the world’s attention was fi
xated on the horrors in Italy and New York City, the per capita death rates in counties in the impoverished southwest corner of Georgia climbed to among the worst in the country. The devastation here is a cautionary tale of what happens when the virus seeps into communities that have for generations remained on the losing end of the nation’s most intractable inequalities: these counties are rural, mostly African American and poor.
New Penn State COVID-19 Report on Essential Work
The Penn State Institute of State and Regional Affairs (ISRA) released today the second installment of the COVID-19 Report Series: Employment Risk, quantifying the extent of establishments and employment effected by the COVID-19 pandemic and the closure of non-essential businesses.
The report uses current definitions for essential businesses paired with data on establishments, employment, and unemployment claims to assess the economic impact of the pandemic in Pennsylvania.
The key findings include:
- At least 1.2 million employees worked in industries impacted by business establishment closures.
- Over the four-week period from March 21 through April 4, nearly 1.7 million unemployment claims were filed.
Click here to read the latest report from ISRA’s COVID-19 Report Series for additional details on trends at the sector and county levels.
Cybersecurity Toolkit for Rural Hospitals and Clinics
Ransomware and cybercrime are growing threats to all healthcare facilities, big or small. Protecting a facility from cyber threats can be a daunting task, however, failure to do so can result in fees, fines, litigation, media stories, mistrust, and decreased market capture.
The updated Rural Cybersecurity Toolkit was created by the National Rural Health Resource Center (The Center), and supported by the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy (FORHP). The toolkit is organized into four steps to guide rural hospitals and clinics in developing and fostering a well-rounded cybersecurity program; 1) Awareness, 2) Assessment, 3) Implementation and remediation, and 4) Education. The Toolkit also includes resources from various governmental and non-profit organizations, as well as tools and checklists appropriate for all hospitals and clinics in rural settings.
USDA Announces Additional Food Purchase Plans
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue announced details of $470 million in Section 32 food purchases to occur in the third quarter of fiscal year 2020, in addition to purchases previously announced, which will enable USDA to purchase surplus food for distribution to communities nationwide. These Section 32 purchases will provide additional support for producers and Americans in need, in response to changing market conditions caused by the COVID-19 national emergency.
Using these available funds, USDA plans to purchase 100 percent American-grown and produced agricultural products totaling $4.89 billion for the remainder of this fiscal year in support of American agriculture and people in need:
- Farmers to Families Food Box Program– $3 billion
- TEFAP – Additional $850 million
Support Program for Farmers- $573.6 million
COVID-19 Resources for Farmers & Ag Workers with Disabilities & Health Conditions
The National AgrAbility Project has for assembled a page of resources, referrals, and links related to COVD-19 to support the farmers, agricultural workers, and the professionals who are working with them during this pandemic. It is a great place to find specific information connected to the work of farmers with disabilities or health conditions.
Please share additional suggestions for this page to: agrability@agrability.org
Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act, Title V)
Last week, states received a minimum of $1.25 billion from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act, Title V) to use at their discretion to address issues related to the pandemic. These dollars may be used to fund necessary COVID-19-related expenses that have not been addressed in their most recently passed state budgets and are limited to expenses that occur between March 1 to Dec. 30, 2020.
To make funding decisions amid many competing priorities, states could benefit from a snapshot showing all federal coronavirus relief funds that have already been received by hospitals and their affiliates within their states. It remains unclear if and when the federal government will make such information available and whether that data will be by hospital.
The National Academy for State Health Policy (NASHP), in consultation with state officials, has drafted a template that states can use or revise to seek timely information detailing which hospitals are already receiving federal coronavirus relief funds. The template seeks information about hospitals and their affiliates, which can include labs, physician practices, rural health and behavioral health clinics, surgery centers, and nursing homes.
Knocking Down the Barriers to Health Care for Rural Sexual Assault Victims
The Penn State College of Nursing’s SAFE-T Center team, led by assistant professor and center director Sheridan Miyamoto, is working to address barriers to health care for rural sexual-assault victims with their new telehealth solution, the SAFE-T System.
According to the center, there are more than 284,000 victims of sexual assault across America every year. Victims require timely, skilled, and compassionate health care to address injuries, risk of pregnancy, and sexually transmitted infections. Additionally, forensic evidence must be collected accurately and methodically to aid in the successful prosecution of perpetrators. Current technology used to aid in magnification, image capture, and secure storage is expensive and requires substantial technical expertise to administer.
Unfortunately, most U.S. hospitals lack both the adequate equipment to photo-document evidence of assault and the needed expert sexual assault health care providers; nor do they have access to peers who can review findings. In these underserved settings, providers either use hand-held cameras without magnification or forego photo-documentation completely, resulting in inadequate evidence for successful prosecution of perpetrators.
Currently, the SAFE-T Center pairs existing commercial products with custom telehealth solutions and extensive added security protections and deploys the technology suite to rural partner hospitals, enabling a local nurse and victim to receive assistance from an off-site expert, a sexual assault nurse examiner (teleSANE), in real time, as if the expert were present in the room. The technology also has the ability — with the patient’s consent — to enable the on-site nurse to talk with an on-screen forensic nurse, and together, they support the patient. The teleSANE can also see the live exam in progress to help see that compassionate, person-centered care is delivered and evidence collection adheres to best practices.
SAFE-T System — the next generation, improved visualization and telehealth device and platform — aims to provide better visualization of injuries and allow for enhanced security during these sensitive exams at a substantially reduced cost. Miyamoto said she believes that providing nurses with mentoring, live-guidance and advanced telehealth equipment will help provide sexual assault victims with enhanced confidence in their care, a first step toward healing.
Rural Matters Podcast: Rural Health during the Pandemic with NRHA’s Alan Morgan
In the most recent episode of Rural Matters, host Michelle Rathman chats with Alan Morgan, CEO of the National Rural Health Association, about the impact of COVID-19 on rural health.
Challenges Increase for Rural Maternal Care
New reporting dives into how the coronavirus is exacerbating challenges in rural maternal health care. Prior to the virus, women in rural areas lacked access to maternal care as hospitals and obstetric units across the country closed. Already traveling long distances to receive care, women may find these rural hospitals overwhelmed by patients. The more the virus spreads into rural communities, the further people will have to travel to receive essential, everyday care. In addition to being far from their communities, women are also isolated from the support of their families due to hospital policies to limit visitors in an effort to prevent virus spread. As stated in the article, “people should get the care they need, no matter who they are or where they live.”
Rural Areas Dealing with Long Distances to Care
A recently released online, interactive graphic highlights the areas of the United States that are more than 30 minutes away from the nearest hospital. The article contends that the 8.6 million people living in these rural areas are less likely to seek care, making them more at risk to spread to coronavirus to others. If these rural hospitals become overwhelmed, patients will have to travel even further for treatment. In Navajo County, Arizona, where cases have quickly increased, the smaller tribal clinics have begun transferring patients to hospitals in Flagstaff and Phoenix. The CEO of North Country HealthCare, Anne Newland, says “it’s not just the distance, it’s that people are afraid.” The article also covers the stories of Florida farmworkers and Washington hospitals, where people live far from care.