New health information technologies hold promise for improving health care in remote areas.
Reforming the U.S. health care system is high on the national policy agenda. Debate over U.S. health policy has focused on expanding health insurance coverage, improving the quality of health care, and reducing costs. These three goals are interrelated because lack of insurance coverage and poor coordination of services across care providers tend to drive up costs.
Within this broader context, rural households confront special health care challenges due to their lower socioeconomic status, higher average age, and greater geographic dispersal than the U.S. population as a whole. Rural households, on average, have less education and fewer financial resources, both of which are associated with lower health status. Approximately 15 percent of rural residents (compared with 12 percent of urban residents) are age 65 or older, which leads to a greater incidence of chronic disease and disability. Lower population densities in rural areas mean that residents must typically travel longer distances for health services, especially for specialty care.
Read more...
No comments:
Post a Comment