UnitedHealth Group recently published a report on the state of rural health care today. The report includes suggestions for improvements. Here are the highlights from UnitedHealth’s press release…

Practical Roadmap toward 21st century rural health care for more than 50 million Americans

• 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

This report is a definite call to action. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I’m in Ireland and they recently closed a rural hospital here – and I’ve been hearing about more healthcare (ambulance) closures. So I’m very interested in emphasizing the need for a call to action – before it’s too late. The UnitedHealth report and a related article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune outline some proposed steps in the right direction…

First we clearly need broadband for folks to access telemedicine. I am reminded of the Blandin Broadband Conference in 2009 when we heard from Eindhoven (in the Netherlands, which has won awards for the broadband plan and deployment). One of the points that they made was that broadband helped them serve their residents more cost efficiently – and telemedicine was once example. So while it may cost something to deploy broadband – they considered it a long term cost saving measure.

Second we need to increase rural practitioners. The Star Tribune had a nice Minnesota example of how one organization is doing that (And I’m hoping to write more soon on the “brain gain” studies by Ben Winchester that indicate that finding qualified candidates (experienced and educated) might be easier than one might think…

The report says Minnesota is doing a good job of serving rural residents relative to other parts of the country.

“This is old hat to us,” said Jim Boulger, a psychologist and professor of family medicine at the University of Minnesota Medical School’s Duluth campus, which has been training doctors and looking for ways to improve access to rural and American Indian communities since 1972. …

Boulger said about 47 percent of doctors who have trained at the medical school in Duluth now practice in communities with fewer than 20,000 people.

Third we need to change policies – both in terms of allowing healthcare providers to be reimbursed for telehealth efforts but also in terms certification. We saw that in Minnesota couple of years ago in Adrian Minnesota – where the town opened a telepharmacy and needed to work with the pharmacy the town over for certification.

Both the National Broadband Plan and the Minnesota Ultra High Speed Broadband Task Force report mention telehealth as a benefit of broadband. UnitedHealth is calling out for a look at telehealth. I know the time may not be right for funding of any sort – but maybe this is an investment we have to consider.