Rural health services: Finding the light at the end of the tunnel

Abstract

Many rural communities across Canada are facing challenges to the sustainability of coreemergency and acute care health services, primarily due to problems with medical and nursingstaffing. Data related to service efficacy and effectiveness are not well organized. Mostof Canada still relies on reporting by large geopolitical areas (local health areas) that donot always relate natural catchment population outcomes to community hospital services.Re- organizing rural health services' outcome reporting by the characteristics of geographicallydefined catchment populations would facilitate better planning, systemic quality improvementand stronger continuing professional development for health professionals. It may also serve toinform the transformation of core health services in larger communities.