Resources: Community Development

Rural Hospitals must reach out to their communities to seek widespread involvement in health system planning and decision-making. Involvement leads to more informed citizens and greater community support for local health care providers as they consider critical access hospital conversion.

             Tools Resources Organizations

Tools

Arizona Rural Health Resource Manual
Author(s): Arizona State Office of Rural Health
The purpose of the Arizona Rural Health Resource Manual is to document many rural health resources so that rural health and social service providers and advocates can take advantage of them. Our goal is to empower rural communities and to strengthen their access to health care by providing information not previously available in one place.

Community Service Needs Assessments
This document, developed for the Wisconsin Rural Hospital Flexibility Program, is a compilation of questions used by interviewers to determine respondent perceptions of local services in telephone surveys.

Strategic Planning
This set of process tools, developed by the Center for Rural Health, University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences, are for use when working with rural communities on their needs assessments and strategic planning.

Rural Landscape Model Econometric Model

  • User Manual
    This manual was prepared for the Washington State Department of Health, Office of Community and Rural Health, to accompany a software tool to help rural communities understand and quantify the relationships between rural health care and rural economies.
  • Worksheets
    This Microsoft Excel template provides worksheets for data collection using the Econometric Model.
  • Workbook
    This Microsoft Excel workbook allows for interactive modeling between local health care system characteristics, population characteristics and economic impacts, with IMPLAN data loaded for Washington State counties.

Resources

The Community Benefit and Impact of Critical Access Hospitals: The Results of the 2007 CAH Survey (March 2008)
In 2007, the Flex Monitoring Team conducted a national telephone survey of 381 critical access hospital administrators covering a wide variety of questions concerning hospitals' community benefit and impact activities. This Briefing Paper reports on the community benefit and impact findings of this survey.

The 2006 Report to the Secretary of the National Advisory Committee on Rural Health and Human Services, the PDF Version
This report is the culmination of research over the past year. This year's topics are access to pharmaceuticals and pharmacy services in rural areas; health information technology in rural areas; and family caregiver support of the rural elderly.

CMS Fact Sheets

The Economic Impact of the Critical Access Hospital Program on Illinois Communities
The Illinois CAH Network has contracted with Northern Illinois University to analyze the economic impact of the CAHs on their communities. This report presents the study findings.

Hospital Utilization, Changing Demographics, and Implications for Rural Helath Care Services
This document from the Iowa Bureau of Rural Health and Primary Care provides a preliminary investigation of Iowa hospital capacity and utilization as well as a visual representation of the basic demographic conditions and trends that exist in Iowa counties and townships.

HRSA in My Neighborhood: Information on HRSA grant awards, grantees, health professional shortage areas, and much more!
This program allows you to make a map or create a report with data that includes information on HRSA awarded grant data, HRSA supported health care service delivery sites, Health Professional Shortage Areas, or Medically Underserved Areas and Populations.

Nevada Rural and Frontier Health Data Book
The Nevada Rural and Frontier Data Book - 2004 Edition contains a wide range of current information on population health and the health care delivery system in rural and frontier regions of Nevada. This document comes from the Nevada Center for Education and Health.

Rural California Fact Sheet
This document is a fact sheet for rural California. The fact sheet states California's definition of rural, the California rural geography and population, socioeconomic indicators, health conditions, and health insurance utilization.

Organizations

Rural Health Works
This site, developed and maintained by Oklahoma State University, introduces you to a program to help your community understand the role of heath care services in the overall economy.