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Draft:Medical Deserts in the United States Published by Andy

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Medical Deserts in the United States

The word medical desert is a characterization of an area where there is lack of healthcare facilities and resources for the inhabitants of said area to travel to to seek healthcare. Facilities could be from hospitals to emergency rooms and pharmacies that could be missing from an area leading to lack of medical coverage. The negative effects that Medical Deserts can have on a region is people will lose access to medical services to have routine checkups or be able to get emergency help. This can ultimately cause peoples health to worsen overtime as people will have to travel father to get to the nearest hospital or health facility.[1] Regions in the United States that experience the highest percentage of Medical Deserts are rural areas. As the characteristics of rural areas agriculture and forestry regions where there is lack of urban and commercial development. Although one can be mistaken to believe that Medical deserts only applies to rural areas it can be surprising to note that urban areas can also be affected by medical deserts due to external barriers.

Hospital closures

One factor that create medical deserts is that of hospital closures. Recent data has shown that there has been a total of 195 Rural hospital closures in the United States since 2005.[2] In addition, there is also the risk that nearly 700 more hospitals in the future are at risk of closing as well, due to lack of funding and health insurance plans not being able to help pay the cost for health services of the patient.[2] There are over 60 million people living in rural areas in America according to the United States census.[3] Which means that millions of people are at sick of losing healthcare services. Of the States that have the highest rate of populations lacking both internet access and healthcare services are North Dakota, New Mexico, and Mississippi.[4] What makes these Medical Deserts costly to the population is that when a hospital or clinic closes all the patients under the hospital have to find new providers and travel father than they would have to seek medical treatment.[5]

Remedies to Medical Deserts

A solution that has been used to help remedy Medical Deserts and provide primary care is Telehealth. Telehealth is a services that helps connect patient to health care workers such as Physicians to help bridge the gap and help diagnose and provide routine check ups to help with preventive care. Telehealth uses cell phones and computers to help speak with patients through a video call. This can lead to lots of versatility to help patients who are in rural areas that are far away from any health care specialist who they can see. This keep constant communications with healthcare teams which can help encourage patients to follow their medical advise and thus promote better health.[6] Critiques of Telehealth share their concern over the accuracy of giving medical advise over the phone or video calls as that it cannot beat face to face physical examinations which can lead to low quality medical care. Another critique about Telehealth is the concern since this is a new emerging service there is a concern over security concerns over that peoples privacy can be exposed and information can be leaked from using services like Telehealth.[6]

Another solution to help increase medical coverage and eliminate medical desert environments is to increase the limit on how many physicians can be hired. Currently there are 1,109,460 physicians workin in the United States.[7] However, even though there are so many physicians there is still a shortage as only about 11% of physicians work in areas that are rural which hold up to 20% of the American population.[8] Due to their being a cap on how many physicians can be licensed there is a shortage of physicians to go around and thus rural areas with small population are undesirable to physicians. There have been emerging programs to help alleviate and help medical students from rural areas complete. As medical professional who grew up in rural areas are more likely to comeback and work where they come from.[8]

References

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  1. ^ Carson, Susan; Peterson, Kim; Humphrey, Linda; Helfand, Mark (2013). Evidence Brief: Effects of Small Hospital Closure on Patient Health Outcomes. VA Evidence Synthesis Program Reports. Washington (DC): Department of Veterans Affairs (US). PMID 27606393.
  2. ^ a b "States With the Most Rural Hospital Closures".
  3. ^ Bureau, US Census. "One in Five Americans Live in Rural Areas". Census.gov. Retrieved 2024-07-26. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  4. ^ Pennic, Fred (2021-09-10). "Healthcare Deserts: 80% of U.S. Lacks Adequate Access to Healthcare". hitconsultant.net. Retrieved 2024-07-26.
  5. ^ Office, U. S. Government Accountability (2022-09-29). "Why Health Care Is Harder to Access in Rural America | U.S. GAO". www.gao.gov. Retrieved 2024-07-26.
  6. ^ a b Gajarawala, Shilpa N.; Pelkowski, Jessica N. "Telehealth Benefits and Barriers". The Journal for Nurse Practitioners. 17 (2): 218–221. doi:10.1016/j.nurpra.2020.09.013. ISSN 1555-4155. PMC 7577680. PMID 33106751.
  7. ^ "Number of doctors in the U.S. by state 2024". Statista. Retrieved 2024-07-26.
  8. ^ a b "Attracting the next generation of physicians to rural medicine". AAMC. Retrieved 2024-07-26.

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