People living in rural and remote communities often have among the greatest health needs but the most limited access to healthcare services, including specialist care. One solution for increasing access to specialist services is visiting-specialist services or specialist outreach clinics - that is, planned, regular visits by specialist physicians from their usual practice location to see patien...

This article summarizes the perspectives gained in the course of evaluating a 4-year demonstration program that supported rural hospital networks as mechanisms for improving rural health care delivery. Findings include: (1) joining a network is a popular, low-cost strategic response for rural hospitals in an uncertain environment; (2) rural hospital network survival is enhanced by the mutual re...

INTRODUCTION Improved HIV outcomes as a result of expanded antiretroviral therapy (ART) access is threatened by increasing rates of loss to follow up (LTFU) among those on ART, largely reported in urban populations. Some reports suggest that LTFU rates are overestimated due to patient movement to other facilities and inadequate medical records. STUDY OBJECTIVE To define the proportion disenga...

BACKGROUND In Thailand, the inequitable distribution of doctors between rural and urban areas has a major impact on access to care for those living in rural communities. The rural medical education programme 'Collaborative Project to Increase Rural Doctors (CPIRD)' was implemented in 1994 with the aim of attracting and retaining rural doctors. This study examined the impact of CPIRD in relation...

This article is a comparison of the characteristics of hospitals serving the general population and Medicaid recipients in California and Michigan, using data from Medicaid uniform claims files and the American Hospital Association Annual Survey for 1984. A greater concentration of discharges in a small number of "high Medicaid volume" urban and rural hospitals in each State was observed for Me...

Research suggests that there is some confusion among quality improvement managers about the differences between quality management and traditional quality assurance. This lack of understanding would appear to be the same among rural and urban health staff, although there is a higher percentage of staff engaged in multidisciplinary activities in the rural health services. Education of staff and ...

This paper, derived from The role and function of the rural nurse in Australia study, describes the effects of organisational change upon the rural nurses participating in the study. It appears that whilst change is an inevitable and regular feature of rural health service delivery, it does not necessarily benefit rural nurses or communities for reasons unique to rural life. Nurses in the study...

Changing people social status, particularly upwardly, is often considered an indication of a government success in reaching a fair society, particularly in traditionally rigid structures. This is mainly possible through implementing development plan(s) which is theoretically assumed to result in wiping out traditional rigid structures. In the post-revolutionary Iran, the government took upon it...

Tourism in the third millennium has become one of the most thriving economic activities around the world, and many developmental planners and policymakers refer to tourism as the main pillar for sustainable development. Tourism is considered as one of the most complicated occupations in numerous countries worldwide and as a multi-aspect activity possessing various positive effects and utilizati...