Monday, Jul 11 2011 2:31PM
A recent study finds rural critical access hospitals are still lagging.
Despite efforts over the past several years, a recent study from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) found critical access hospitals (CAHs) in rural areas of the country continue to have reduced capabilities compared to other healthcare facilities.
The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found patients who went to a CAH for a heart attack, congestive heart failure or pneumonia had a higher risk of death than patients elsewhere.
CAHs, which comprise more than 25 percent of acute care hospitals in the country, include any isolated healthcare facility with 25 or fewer beds. Researchers concluded that in spite of
community development programs designed to improve the quality of CAHs, previous efforts have not reached their aims.
"Critical access hospitals face a unique set of obstacles to providing high quality care, and our findings suggest that their needs are not being met by current health policy efforts," said Karen Joynt, a research fellow in HSPH’s Department of Health Policy and Management and the lead author of the paper.
Many of these facilities may have a difficult time remaining open in spite of the Medicare Rural Hospital Flexibility Program in the 1997 Balanced Budget Act. That program created a financial assistance system to help keep the facilities afloat.