The paper discusses the institutional reforms for rural electrification (RE) in Thailand and Bangladesh and analyses the impacts of private sector participation in electricity generation and tariff reforms on the poor in Thailand. RE program in Thailand, initiated in 1977, increased electricity access by rural households from 7% in early 70s to 97% by 2000. In Bangladesh the RE program, initiat...

Socioeconomic trends and developments within the U.S. healthcare system have challenged rural hospitals' ability to maintain adequate operating margins and offer needed services. However, some hospitals have fared better in this negative environment than have others. To clarify factors that distinguish the most viable rural Catholic hospitals from the least viable, our study identified a group ...

The New South Wales Department of Health (NSW Health) wishes to make appropriate use of casemix data as inputs to the determination of funding levels for small rural hospitals. However, other factors such as hospital size and degree of isolation might need to be taken into account. The study reported here involved correlation of actual expenditures with those predicted by use of a casemix model...

The gathering of rural type in Guilan plains is a kind of planning for physical development of rural settlements that aims at changing dwellers' lifestyle from a dispersed to a semi-dispersed state. This change will reduce the problems and difficulties of villages. In addition, it is an optimal way to exploit the resources and facilities for making a desirable spatial organization for villagers...

How can rural hospitals continue to attract physicians to their facilities? For most rural hospitals, the number of dollars they spend in medical education equates to the number of physicians they are able to retain on staff. What will be the cost to the consumer versus the physicians if the shortage is not addressed and corrected?

This paper explores determinants of participation, intensity and the magnitude of the rural nonfarm economy (RNFE) in Tajikistan. Conducting analysis at the district level, in addition to traditional individual and household levels, helps to test the impact of institutional determinants of the RNFE invariant at the micro level. We have found that rural residents in Tajikistan are mostly pushed ...

PURPOSE The implementation of a pharmacy-directed antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) program involving the use of telemedicine technology is described. SUMMARY Pursuant to a gap analysis of AMS services at a rural hospital where physician specialists in infectious diseases (ID) or pharmacists with advanced ID training were not available, a multidisciplinary team was formed to implement a steward...

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES To redefine the practice of rural nurses and describe a model that conceptualises the capabilities and characteristics required in the rural environment. BACKGROUND The way in which the practice of rural nurses has been conceptualised is problematic. Definitions of rural nursing have been identified primarily through the functional context of rural health service delivery....