Open Data Access is Innovating Health Care in Rural Communities
Oklahoma State University (OSU) is uniquely transforming health care through the establishment of OSU’s Center for Health Systems Innovation (CHSI). CHSI’s mission is to transform rural and Native American health through the implementation of innovative care delivery and information technology solutions.
America’s health care system is far from perfect – anyone in the industry can tell you that. What many industry professionals are less willing to admit is that one of our health care system’s greatest areas of disparities is in rural America.
Often, because health care organizations in rural communities are understaffed and separated by great distances, rural residents go without the care they need. By and large, the industry seems to consider the lack of health care in these areas to be low on the list of priorities – a mentality that doesn’t do anyone much good.
Here’s the thing: If we look at the volume of rural residents nationwide, we’re considering a sizable population of up to 46 million people who likely have limited access to quality health care. That’s a lot of people who could use our help. What’s causing this issue in rural America, and how can practices like open data access help us solve for it?
Rural health care’s supply and demand problem
In the health care industry, the aging baby boomer population brings some key challenges to the spotlight – especially in rural health care markets. Approximately 76 million baby boomers were born between 1946 and 1964. Until recently, they were America’s largest demographic population (millennials have recently claimed that spot). Of those baby boomers, around 40 million are already aged 65 or older.
Today, one of the chief economic concerns facing the United States is how to address this shift in demographics and prepare for it. The baby boomer bubble issue affects all industries, but when it comes to the health care industry, we’re affected on both sides of the supply and demand curve.
As we get older, we develop more age-related, chronic conditions; as our health care needs go up, the demand for health care rises. In the industry, the physicians and other providers that would otherwise be meeting the demands of the health care system are also getting older and retiring. So, thanks in part to a baby boomer population that is hitting retirement age at a rate of 10,000 people a day , the health care industry gets hit twice as hard on both the demand for services and the supply of providers.
While this trend broadly affects the entire health care industry, the rural market is hit the hardest. In these rural markets, demand for health care is even more critical because the population of rural patients generally carry higher incidence rates than their urban counterparts for many chronic conditions, including hypertension rates, diabetes rates, tobacco use rates, congestive heart failure and more.
On the other hand, primary health care coverage is a significant delivery challenge in rural markets. For instance, in Oklahoma alone, we were short 530 rural primary care doctors in 2013; by 2025, that number will be closer to 830 . Nationally, the ratio of patients to primary care physicians in rural areas is only 39.8 physicians per 100,000 people ; this is significantly lower than the 53.3 physicians per 100,000 people in urban areas. In rural Oklahoma, there are about half as many primary care physicians practicing as there are in urban areas. This figure doesn’t account for the number of rural primary doctors in Oklahoma that are approaching retirement age ; today, 25 percent are over the age of 65, and 50 percent are over the age of 55.
Additionally, while rural areas are understaffed at a primary care level, there’s also a significant shortage or complete absence of subspecialty level practitioners.
