Rural Pennsylvania has 16 hospitals designated as “critical access.” This designation is designed to improve access to health care by providing a small amount of extra funding to providing essential services, such as 24/7 emergency care, in rural communities.
In most cases, critical access hospitals are at least 35 miles from neighboring hospitals. So you can imagine how important critical access hospitals’ emergency medical services are to rural Pennsylvanians who experience bad accidents or other traumas, or sudden, life-threating illnesses like heart attacks.
A big job to do
Critical access hospitals are often the only health care “hub” for their communities, providing many different kinds of health care services:
- Regular checkups and preventive care, such as vaccinations and screening for diseases like high blood pressure, diabetes, and cancer
- Every day medical services, like treatment for the flu and other common ailments or stitches for minor mishaps
- Patient education, care, and care coordination for chronic diseases such as obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, and mental illness
- Community health programs designed to prevent substance abuse, promote healthy lifestyle choices, and address many other health issues
A big job, but big challenges too
Critical access hospitals are vital to rural Pennsylvania—but they face big challenges. Critical access hospitals:
- Serve patients and communities that are generally older, sicker, and poorer than average, providing many different kinds of crucial health care services to sparsely populated areas
- Must provide a wide range of vital services even though the maximum daily patient population for these hospitals is 25 or fewer
- Must recruit doctors and other professionals to practice in rural areas in order to overcome provider shortages and serve patients and communities in need
Struggling to keep the doors open
Given their small size and broad responsibilities, critical access hospitals often struggle to maintain the resources needed to serve rural patients and communities.
For example, two out of three critical access hospitals are operating in the red because they have negative margins.
That means they are literally paying out—for supplies, maintenance and utilities, equipment and technology, health care professionals’ salaries—more than they are being paid for health care services.
How Pennsylvania supports critical access hospitals
Fortunately for Pennsylvanians who live outside population centers, our state provides a small, but very important, amount of extra funding support to help critical access hospitals keep their doors open and serve rural patients and communities.
Pennsylvanians should be able to get health care without spending time and money to travel long distances. Critical access hospital are an important part of the health care system for our state’s rural communities.