Minnesota’s rural health care system under new pressure

I was born in a rural hospital in southwestern Minnesota. I was treated for burns after a camping accident in another one in northern Minnesota. My father died in a another.

All those events were years ago, but those three hospitals still exist, two independent and one as part of a larger health system. Their survival testifies to intense demand from people in their communities, but there are new and continuing pressures on them and rural health care in general.

That's why we're launching a new Ground Level topic page on rural health care. National health care reform is putting stress on rural hospitals that already have thin financial margins; demographics make rural hospitals more reliant on Medicare and Medicaid, which are under fire; the hunt to find family practice doctors is harder than ever.

But communities are adjusting to some degree. Regional networks are helping small hospitals and clinics cope, for example, and Minnesota is trying care approaches that will let paramedics and dental therapists fill some of the physician and dentist gap.

As with our other topic pages, we hope Ground Level's project on rural health care will provide a good place to find out what's happening on the forefront of this issue. Check out our video on a cash-only doctor in Osakis and take a look at our "Up Close" feature on people who are making a difference in their communities. You can find resources for more information, and we've highlighted a half dozen spots around the state that will be interesting to watch in coming months and years.

And we especially want to hear your own stories about how health care in rural Minnesota might be changing. There's a link on the page to let you do that or you can simply go here.

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