CONTEXT Rural patients have limited access to dermatologic care. Farmworkers have high rates of skin disease and limited access to care. PURPOSE This exploratory study assessed whether teledermatology consultations could help meet the needs of health care providers for farmworkers in rural clinics. METHODS Dermatologists provided 79 consultations, using store-and-forward teledermatology, to...

BACKGROUND Lithuanian primary health care (PHC) is undergoing changes from the systems prevalent under the Soviet Union, which ensured free access to specialised health care. Currently four different PHC models work in parallel, which offers the opportunity to study their respective effect on referral rates. Our aim was to investigate whether there were differences in referrals rates from diffe...

OBJECTIVE To measure the intensity of depressive symptoms in the populations residing in rural areas of western Poland, and to delineate the putative association between the intensity of depression and selected socio-demographic and clinical factors. MATERIALS AND METHOD The study covered 445 adults recruited from one family physician practice in the rural area of Wielkopolska region. The fol...

In the context of national scrutiny on graduate medical education (GME) from both the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission and the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, Xierali et al, bring our attention to the ongoing needs of rural underserved communities and the potential role of critical access hospitals (CAHs) in training the rural physician workforce. Their analysis demonstrates th...

OBJECTIVE To determine whether more Canadian family physicians are marrying other physicians and to examine the influence of physician-physician marriages on FPs' professional activities. DESIGN Secondary analysis of a population survey (mailed questionnaire) using regression analysis. SETTING Canadian family medicine. PARTICIPANTS Family physicians who responded to the 2001 National Fami...

BACKGROUND Studies comparing the access to health care of rural and urban populations have been contradictory and inconclusive. These studies are complicated by the influence of other factor which have been shown to be related to access and utilization. This study assesses the equity of access to health care services across the rural-urban continuum in Canada before and after taking other deter...

BACKGROUND In recent years use of family physicians has been determined as a start point of health system reform to achieve more productive health services. In this study we aimed to assess the cost-efficiency of the implementation of this plan in Fars province, southern Iran. METHODS This cross-sectional descriptive study was done in 2007 in 18 provincial health centers as well as 224 rural ...

CONTEXT The US government is expanding the capacity of community health centers (CHCs) to provide care to underserved populations. OBJECTIVE To examine the status of workforce shortages that may limit CHC expansion. DESIGN AND SETTING Survey questionnaire of all 846 federally funded US CHCs that directly provide clinical services and are within the 50 states and the District of Columbia, co...

BACKGROUND People with HIV are living longer and their care has shifted towards the prevention and management of comorbidities. However, little is known about who is providing their care. Our objective was to characterize the provision of HIV care in Ontario by physician specialty. METHODS We conducted a retrospective population-based observational study using linked administrative databases ...