Ten ideas for building a strong Australian rural health system.

This commentary was written to generate ideas and provoke debate about priorities for rural health, in advance of the Australian National Rural Health Alliance 2009 conference. The conference will doubtless be packed with highlights as together we reflect on 20 years’ successes and failures in the rural and remote health sector under the conference theme: ‘ celebrating the sector’. Another key theme is ‘collaborating in health care teams and service models that work’. We propose that our communities can learn from models that work and build on recent successes in rural health policy and service delivery.