In this issue
Rural
Health Hero, Rural Health Team awards honor service to rural Minnesota
The Minnesota Department of Health, the Minnesota Rural Health
Association and the National Rural Health Resource Center on June 30
presented two awards honoring outstanding service to rural Minnesota
communities at the Minnesota Rural Health Conference in Duluth.
Maureen Ideker, RN, director of telehealth at Essentia Health, Duluth, was
honored with the Rural Health Hero award for her more than 20 years of
leadership developing telehealth services to improve health care access for
rural Minnesotans. Ideker became an early and enduring advocate of telehealth
and the infrastructure needed to maintain it, including broadband capacity,
funding and training services in rural areas. Ideker’s extensive experience
has made her the state’s ‘resident expert’ on telehealth and how to make it
work for rural Minnesota.
The 2015 Rural Health Team award was given to the board of directors of the
Angel Fund, a volunteer-run organization supporting individuals with cancer
in communities on the Iron Range. Nominated by Deb Boardman, president and
CEO of Fairview Range Medical Center, Hibbing, the Angel Fund supports
individuals and families by holding multiple fundraisers to supply
nontraditional items such as gas cards for transportation, medical supplies
not covered by insurance and assistance with other daily living expenses. In
2014, the Angel Fund helped over 138 individuals in over 30 northern
Minnesota communities.
Congratulations to the honorees! return to top
Sen.
Franken releases report highlighting findings and solutions from rural health
roundtables
Last week, Sen. Al Franken released a report outlining
challenges Minnesota’s rural health care providers face, potential policy
recommendations and innovative approaches providers are taking to ensure
residents have continued access to high-quality care.
“Stepping Up to the Challenge: Keeping Rural Communities Healthy” is the result of 28 roundtable discussions Franken and
his staff led around the state with almost 300 health care stakeholders and
community leaders.
The report highlights the four most common challenges the senator’s office
found during the tour:
- Barriers to accessing care – such as the inability to
offer a full array of services; limited transportation for patients;
limited broadband service for providers; changing demographics; and
navigating a wide array of complicated federal, state and local
regulations.
- Critical workforce shortages – unique recruitment and
retention challenges, especially in mental health, long term care and
primary care.
- Fragile funding – rural providers rely heavily
on government funding and public and private grants that are not
adequate to sustain the delivery of needed services.
- Health care regulations – health care regulations that
result in administrative burden and strain resources.
The potential recommendations to address each challenge
include:
- Expanding scope of practice
for cross-sector training
- Increasing early exposure to
health professions
- Using emerging professions
such as community health workers and community paramedics
- Providing loan forgiveness in
targeted fields
- Achieving mental health
parity
- Rewarding prevention efforts
- Funding to support location
based services
- Finding opportunities to
advance telehealth and other technology
The report also contained innovate approaches rural health
care providers are deploying, including:
- Participating in Accountable
Care Organizations (ACOs), or adopting similar ACO concepts
- Finding flexible grants for
population health where human services professionals and health care
professions are working together
- Offering mobile and
location-based mental health and dental care services
- Employing community health
workers to help patients access and use the health system appropriately,
provide healthy lifestyle coaching and help coordinate transportation
- Developing flexible training
programs that bring high school, college and medical students together
to participate in basic levels of care
Franken plans to share this report with his co-chair on the
Senate Rural Health Caucus, Sen. Pat Roberts from Kansas, as well as other
members of the caucus and use it to help inform future rural health policy
proposals.
For more information please contact Ann Gibson, vice president federal relations
and workforce, MHA, 651-603-3527. return to top
17
hospitals met PAC fundraising goal by July 1
Congratulations to the 17 hospitals that have met their
Minnesota Hospital Political Action Committee (PAC) fundraising goal for
2015.
- Avera Marshall Regional
Medical Center
- CHI St. Joseph’s Health, Park
Rapids
- Cook County North Shore
Hospital, Grand Marais
- Cuyuna Regional Medical
Center, Crosby
- Fairview Ridges Hospital,
Burnsville
- Fairview Southdale Hospital,
Edina
- FirstLight Health System,
Mora
- Gillette Children's Specialty
Healthcare, St. Paul
- Johnson Memorial Health
Services, Dawson
- Lakewood Health System,
Staples
- LifeCare Medical Center, Roseau
- Maple Grove Hospital
- North Memorial Medical
Center, Robbinsdale
- Ortonville Area Health
Services
- Redwood Area Hospital,
Redwood Falls
- RiverView Health, Crookston
- Sanford Jackson Medical
Center
These hospitals demonstrate the importance of supporting the PAC.
For more information about the PAC or your hospital PAC goal, contact Carol Eshelman, PAC coordinator, 651-603-3539 or Kristin Loncorich, director of state government relations,
651-603-3526. return to top
MHA
welcomes new communications manager
Emily Lowther joins the MHA communications team as the new
communications manager. Emily will be the editor of Newsline, work with
member communicators on the “Minnesota’s Hospitals: Strengthening
Healthy Communities” campaign, manage MHA’s website and social media and work
closely with MHA’s patient safety team.
Emily is a strategic communications and public relations professional with
expertise in leadership counsel, writing and editing, media relations,
marketing, internal communications and social media. She most recently served
as a senior communications and public affairs specialist with Minneapolis
Public Schools, where she was employed since 2005. Emily holds a bachelor's
degree in English and anthropology from Harvard College and a master's degree
in public policy and leadership from the University of St. Thomas.
Emily lives in St. Paul with her husband and their two cats. She enjoys
reading, practicing yoga and traveling. Email Emily. return to top
MNCM
2015 Annual Seminar early bird registration deadline
MN Community Measurement’s 2015 Annual Seminar, “Motivating
Through Measurement: Catalyzing Improvement in Health Equity, Cost and
Patient Outcomes,” will be held Thursday, Sept. 24, at the Earle Brown
Heritage Center in Minneapolis. Participants will hear from inspiring and
thought-provoking speakers, receive practical information to apply to their
organization and engage in community conversation on health care measurement
priorities.
Early bird registration ends July 24; click here to register. For more information,
visit the event website or contact Erin Ghere,
manager of communications and engagement, MN Community Measurement,
612-454-4827. return to top
Healthiest
State Summit registration available
Presented by the Twin Cities Medical Society and the Minnesota
Public Health Association, the “Healthiest State Summit: Reclaiming Minnesota’s
#1 Health Ranking” will explore the current status of health policies, the
culture of health matrix, socio-economic realities and other essential health
quality facets.
This program will be held Thursday, Aug. 6, at the University of Minnesota
Continuing Education and Conference Center in Minneapolis. Health care
professionals, educators, policy makers, students and health and human
services professionals are encouraged to attend.
For more information and to register, visit www.metrodoctors.com. return to top