Giving Compass' Take:
- Zachary Sweger examines how closures of rural hospitals cause other hospitals nearby to become overburdened.
- What are the root causes of rural hospitals closing? How can you fight for health care equity in your community or region?
- Read more about the consequences of rural hospitals closing.
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When rural hospitals close, nearby hospitals see increased emergency department visits and admissions as a result, research finds.
Since 2005, more than 180 rural hospitals in the United States have closed and nearly 1,000 more are at risk of doing so.
“Previous studies have shown that rural hospital closures can have negative health consequences for the communities they serve,” says Daniel George, associate professor of humanities and public health sciences at Penn State College of Medicine. George and colleagues report their findings on how these rural hospital closures affect “bystander hospitals,” or those within a 30-mile radius of the closed facility.
“To our knowledge, we’re the first group to explore this question,” George says. “We predicted that closures would, over time, lead to increased strain on bystander institutions.”
Read the full article about rural hospital closures by Zachary Sweger at Futurity.