24. Rural Rehabilitation and Access to Health Care

Challenges in rural health care include lack of physical access to facilities, lack of special equipment, and lack of healthcare provider knowledge in working with individuals with complex needs.  Because of this lack of access, many individuals are forced to travel long distances to metropolitan areas for their healthcare, or individuals wait until problems that are easily treated become very advance problems and seek treatment in the local Emergency Department.  Therefore, a lack of access not only impacts the person’s quality of life, it also leads to an overall increase in healthcare costs. This lecture will provide an overview of some of the rural disparities and will include opportunities for implementation of solutions in rural healthcare, including results of rural healthcare accessibility surveys in Kentucky.

Christina Bard, Jason Jones, Kathy Sheppard-Jones