How far is too far? Rural hospital closures and emergency room travel distances
Abstract
In the past decade, rural hospital closures have been occurring at an increasing pace. This paper explores historical key health policies that resulted in hospital bed growth over the past 75 years and the subsequent factors that have resulted in hospital closures, particularly in rural locations. These closures have reduced the number of licensed hospital emergency rooms available in rural locations and have resulted in new challenges for emergency medical service providers attempting to transport rural residents over increased distances for emergency care. Today’s healthcare literature does an excellent job of documenting the increased rate of rural hospital closures and explores the subsequent increases in emergency room travel distances and access issues for emergency services consumers living in rural areas that have experienced hospital closures. This paper examines hospital emergency room closures from 2014 to 2023 in rural Missouri. The paper then goes beyond a retrospective review of closed rural Missouri hospitals and mapping of hospital locations to establish a process for identifying rural Missouri hospitals at risk of closure in 2024 and beyond, mapping the potential impact on emergency room travel distances should these hospital closures actually occur. The model presented in the research is designed to be easily utilised by regional health planners, helping them to identify potential hospital closures and communicate the potential healthcare access impact to community stakeholders.
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Author's Biography
James Dockins Dr James Dockins is a professor of management in the Healthcare Leadership programme at Rockhurst University. He teaches classes in health systems, quality management, health policy, leadership and international business. Dr Dockins has over 30 years of experience in the healthcare industry as a senior hospital and health plan executive in the USA and served in leadership roles in international hospitals in India, Saudi Arabia and Mauritius. While attending the University of Memphis, Dr Dockins obtained an EdD degree and earlier received an MBA from Lincoln University. He earned his undergraduate health sciences degree from the University of Missouri—Columbia. His research interests include healthcare quality, access to healthcare, health policy, patient satisfaction, pricing transparency and employee satisfaction. Dr Dockins is a life fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives.
Dave Lingerfelt started his professional career at the Cerner Corporation in 2002 as a Technical Support Engineer. He later moved on to manage the technical training division. Dave then managed the social business (Web 2.0) implementation team working to establish a social business presence for Cerner. In his last two years at Cerner, he worked in the remote hosting division, where he was responsible for implementing and supporting large-scale health systems as they adopted new technology and upgraded existing platforms. Dave holds a BS in management information systems and computer science from Kansas State University. He earned his MBA with emphasis in healthcare leadership from Park University. Dave currently works at Rockhurst University in the Helzberg School of Management as the Director/ Professor of Healthcare and Data Science. He is also the co-founder of ITdoc Consulting.
Citation
Dockins, James and Lingerfelt, Dave (2024, June 1). How far is too far? Rural hospital closures and emergency room travel distances. In the Management in Healthcare: A Peer-Reviewed Journal, Volume 8, Issue 4. https://doi.org/10.69554/NHHU5825.
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