The quality of surgical care in rural hospitals is important, as surgery remains a critical component of rural health care systems. Current models for surgical quality assessment and improvement largely reflect the characteristics of larger urban hospital settings, which include proximity to other providers for peer review, higher procedure volumes to accurately assess outcomes, and greater fin...

We conducted a qualitative content analysis of barriers to nursing home admission for rural residents. Data came from semi-structured interviews with 23 rural hospital discharge planners across five states (Georgia, Idaho, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin). From those, we identified four themes around nonmedical barriers to rural nursing home placement with particular salience in rural ar...

Non-adherence to self-management guidelines accounted for 50% of hospital readmissions in heart failure patients. Evidence showed that patient activation affects self-management behaviors in populations living with chronic conditions. The purpose of this study was to describe patient activation level and its relationship with knowledge, self-efficacy and self-management behaviors in heart failu...

We show that the full version of the so-called ‘rural hospital theorem’ generalizes to many-to-many matching problems where agents on both sides of the problem have substitutable and weakly separable preferences. We also show that when agents’ preferences satisfy substitutability, the domain of weakly separable pref-

Rural Development is a priority in Europe and it is supported by specific, financial programmes. At the same time, sustainability is the key word for the European Union to construct programmes and policies for all human activities. However, measuring sustainability of rural areas is not easy, due to their particular features. The improvement of knowledge on sustainability in rural areas is impo...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate whether rural consumer preferences for health services have changed over time or vary across communities with different models of health service delivery. DESIGN Questionnaire survey replicating a 1989 study, with ranking of seven different healthcare services. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING Adult occupants from a 20% sample of private residences, in towns and on farms, in t...

In developing countries, malnutrition among children is a major public-health issue. The aim of the study was to describe perceptions of Malawian nurses about nursing interventions for malnourished children and their parents. A qualitative method was used. Data were collected and analyzed according to the phenomenographic research approach. Twelve interviews were performed with 12 nurses at a r...

A key proposition set out in Setting Priorities for the B.C. Health System and a subsequent document on B.C. Health System Strategy Implementation: A Collaborative and Focused Approach is that the current utilization of hospitals is neither sustainable nor the best delivery system for meeting the needs of several key populations. The documents argue the need to radically rethink and reposition ...

Hospital closures occur from time to time. These closures affect not only the patients that depend on the hospitals but also the economy in many rural areas. Many factors come into play when a hospital decides to shut off services. Although influencing reasons may vary, hospital closures are likely to be caused by financial shortfalls. In the USA recently, several rural hospitals have closed an...

PURPOSE China's Ministry of Health has enacted Rural Primary Health Care Program (2001-2010) (HCP) guidelines to improve the quality of people's health. However, the program's success in Western China remains unevaluated. Thus, this study aims to begin to fill that gap by analyzing the provision and utilization of Rural Primary Health Care (RPHC) in Western China. METHODS A cross-sectional st...