Rural America faces special healthcare challenges. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, more than 3.6 million people in Illinois live in a health professional shortage area, which is a federal designation for geographic areas that lack adequate primary care clinicians.
IHC medical director Dr. Margaret Kirkegaard and three colleagues delivered a presentation entitled Medical Home Transformation for the Rural Practice at the Illinois Rural Health Association Annual Conference in Effingham on April 25 that addresses these challenges.
The co-presenters were: Dr. Rachel Winters, a family physician from Lawrenceville, Vince Keenan, the Executive Vice President of the Illinois Academy of Family Physicians, and Scott Allen, the Executive Director of the Illinois Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Together, they discussed the medical home model of care and the unique characteristics of implementing the medical home model in rural practices. The presentation materials can be viewed on the webinar page of the IHC website.
