Rural Hospital Data: Do Smaller Hospitals Fall Behind?.

Cancer, heart disease and other ailments that befall those that live in the city are no different than what those in rural communities face. But what health experts are trying to determine is why the number of life-threatening ailments hasn’t fallen in rural areas like  it has in urban areas.

One reason might be that some of these smaller hospitals may be working with different reporting standards than the major hospitals must report. Government authorities, realizing that doctors and administrators (sometimes one in the same) are often carrying the workload of more than one position, made it easier on them by taking away the rural hospital data recording requirement. But this position taken by the government is creating discussion by some experts, who say that by not reporting their numbers, there is no quality accountability.

Larger hospital groups have been pressured to improve the mortality rates of those suffering from pneumonia, heart disease and cancer. This objective has resulted in a two-percentage point drop over an eight-year period. However, during that same time, the rural hospitals are looking at slight increases over the same period, according to rural hospital data.

Another aspect of the trend differences in disease outcomes between smaller hospitals compared to larger hospitals involves medical technology. Rural hospitals may be utilizing patient imagery, for example, that is slower to access, share and view — thus resulting in possible delays of diagnosis. If patients must be transported to another location, there can also be additional complications in quickly sharing this data with other facilities. Others are more vulnerable to data loss by natural disasters or other factors, and may struggle with keeping staff up to speed on ways to use and implement new vendor neutral technology for radiological images.

Health care experts also suggest a partnership strategy whereby the larger hospital teams with its rural hospitals to offer a guiding hand in recording data. Resource sharing is one area that the small hospitals could really benefit from. Taking on newer technology could also narrow the geographical gap between the rural and urban divide, which means broadband Internet would have to be accessible in these areas to fully enjoy the technological advances of some of the tools available today.

With more than 72 million Americans living in rural areas, it’s vital that the hospitals serving these many, many communities get up to speed on the recording and quality improvement measures that can reduce the mortality rates and improve the wellness factor.

OffSite Image Management Inc., is uniquely suited to assist small and rural hospitals in their vendor neutral archiving, data storage, disaster loss prevention and business continuity needs. OffSite is also a premiere picture archiving communications systems specialist (PACS), offering vendor neutral archiving and virtual CD – cloud management.