BACKGROUND Poor access to essential medicines is common in many low- and middle-income countries, partly due to an insufficient and inadequately trained workforce to manage the medicines supply chain. We conducted a prospective impact evaluation of the training and deployment of pharmacy assistants (PAs) to rural health centers in Malawi. METHODS A quasi-experimental design was used to compar...

OBJECTIVE To examine, using nationally representative data, which patient, hospital, and county characteristics influence rural residents' urban hospitalization. METHODS Rural residents hospitalized in urban hospitals (crossovers) are compared with those hospitalized in rural hospitals (noncrossovers). National Hospital Discharge Survey data were merged with Area Resource File and Centers for...

PURPOSE Differences in stroke care quality for patients in rural and urban locations have been suggested, but whether differences exist across Veteran Administration Medical Centers (VAMCs) is unknown. This study examines whether rural-urban disparities exist in inpatient quality among veterans with acute ischemic stroke. METHODS In this retrospective study, inpatient stroke care quality was ...

Objective To assess rural – urban differences in electronic medical record (EMR) adoption among office-based physician practices in the U.S. Methods Survey data on over 270,000 office-based physician sites (representing over 1,280,000 physicians) in the U.S. collected by SK&A Information Services in 2012 was used to assess differences in EMR adoption rates between practices in rural and urban a...

On January 1, 2006, the Medicare program began offering prescription drug coverage (Medicare Part D) to over 42 million Medicare beneficiaries. This policy brief provides a first snapshot of enrollment in rural and urban areas across the United States and outlines the early findings from an analysis of plans available to rural persons under Medicare's Part D program. The data in this brief will...

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....

This brief describes Medicaid’s role for 52 million nonelderly children and adults living in the most rural areas in the United States and discusses how expansions or reductions in Medicaid could affect rural areas. It shows:  Rural populations face significant challenges to their health care coverage and access. People who live in the most rural counties of America are spread across almost 2,...

introduction: the aim of the present study is to show regional disparities in iran through measurement of the level of development of different provinces with respect to their accessibility to the health and medicare facilities. methods: to accomplish the above mentioned purpose, data regarding 18 health and medicare indexes for the years 2006-2008, have been collected. the quantified methods s...