2010 News

Healthcare in CO: Everybody has a Story - Public News Service, 12/20/10
Stories to put in the bank might help ensure better health-care quality and access for everyone. Starting next year, Coloradans will be invited to record their health-related stories, which will be categorized and shared with the public.

The Colorado Rural Health Center, ClinicNET, and the Colorado Coalition for the Medically Underserved will be putting together a "story corps" project with funding from The Colorado Trust and the Colorado Health Foundation. The project will include a comparison of the stories with statistics, to see if what people say matches up with what researchers have discovered.

Telehealth comes to rural towns - Pueblo Chieftain, 11/14/10
Residents in Lamar are now among the first in the nation to experience a groundbreaking telehealth initiative called Connected Care. The program improves access locally by connecting patients in Lamar and several other rural areas in Colorado with primary and specialty physicians in suburban and urban locations hundreds of miles away via high-definition virtual visits.

Other health clinics need support, too - Denver Post eLetters, 10/24/10
Re: “Colo. clinics bank on health reform,” Oct. 16 news story.

Your article provided many important details about how the health reform bill is in bringing additional funds to support our state’s safety-net clinics. This is critical work and a good use of these funds.

It’s also important to appreciate that many rural and urban health clinics are not “federally qualified” community health centers and do not qualify for the more generous funding that flows to federally qualified clinics like Clinica Family Health Services, one of the clinics identified in the article. In fact, nurse practitioner Jenny Mitchell from the Needlerock Family Health Clinic, profiled in the same issue, is from a non-federally qualified clinic in rural Colorado.

Both Clinica and Needlerock, and other facilities like these two, need our support and the support of Congress and the Colorado legislature so they can meet the growing needs of the uninsured and underinsured in rural Colorado.

Lou Ann Wilroy, Aurora

The author is CEO of the Colorado Rural Health Center.

800th Colorado Health Care Provider Signs-Up for EHR and 'Meaningful Use' Support from CO-REC - PR Newswire, 10/19/10
With its 800th provider letter of agreement signed, the Colorado Regional Extension Center (CO-REC) announced today that it is one-third of its way to reaching its goal of signing-up a total of 2,295 primary care providers to receive support implementing and effectively using Electronic Health Records (EHRs). CO-REC reached the 800-provider milestone in less than three months time. This exceeded the organization's goal to sign-up 600 providers in six months. The six community partners that are part of the CO-REC include the Colorado Community Managed Care Network, Colorado Foundation for Medical Care, Colorado Rural Health Center and ClinicNET, Health TeamWorks, Physician Health Partners and Quality Health Network.

In tiny Crawford, health reform has one face: "Our Jenny," nurse practitioner - Denver Post, 10/16/10
Les Kolb, like many in this 366-resident town near Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, has only scorn for health care reform, along with nothing but praise for the health provider who hopes to remain here because of it. Traditional ranching, timber and coal-mining industries are struggling here. Only 40 percent of patients at Needlerock clinic have insurance. People here are down on the idea of forced insurance coverage, even though many have horror stories about getting bucked off a horse or having a child suffer from a debilitating flu. Before the Needlerock clinic opened in 2008, such problems turned life-threatening and bank-breaking.

Gov. Ritter’s Decision to Opt Out of Federal Nurse Anesthetist Rule for Rural Hospitals - Letter from Governor Bill Ritter, 09/27/10
“CHA and its member hospitals and health systems are committed to providing access to high-quality, safe and affordable healthcare,” said Steven J. Summer, President and CEO of the Colorado Hospital Association. “By allowing rural and Critical Access Hospitals to determine the anesthesia arrangements that best meet the needs of the individual facilities, communities and the patients they serve, rural hospitals across the state now have the necessary flexibility to continue providing access to safe and affordable healthcare.” - CHA statement in support of the Governor's announcement

Your community health care input - Glenwood Springs-Post Independent, 09/16/10
A diverse gathering of community members met with Clint Cresawn of Colorado STRIDES on Sept. 2 at The River Center to discuss health, health care and healthy living in Garfield County. The analysis is designed to provide a base for a community action plan to be created at the next meeting, which is to be scheduled in November.

Colorado May Opt Out of CRNA Supervision Rule - Outpatient Surgery Magazine, 09/09/10
Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter is considering opting out of the federal Medicare rule requiring physician supervision of nurse anesthetists in order to help rural hospitals deal with a shortage of providers. Fifteen individual states, most of which have large rural areas, have already chosen to opt out of the 2001 Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services rule requiring nurse anesthetists to be supervised by a physician while administering anesthesia. The Rocky Mountain State's potential opt-out is being supported by the Colorado Rural Health Center, which says hospitals in remote areas are having difficulty recruiting anesthesiologists or finding other types of physicians willing to take on the responsibility of supervising CRNAs.

Ritter's move toward opting out of anesthesia rule upsets anesthesiologists - The Denver Post, 09/03/10
Gov. Bill Ritter is moving toward a policy change that would let advanced-practice nurses administer anesthesia without a physician's supervision, a step that has raised the ire of anesthesiologists. Ritter is expected to decide in the next two weeks whether to opt out of a federal Medicare rule that requires physician supervision for certified registered nurse anesthetists. Colorado would join 15 other states that have opted out of the rule since it became an option in 2001, meaning hospitals here could give nurse anesthetists — who have at least a master's degree in anesthesiology care — responsibility for putting patients under.

CO-REC Ready to Assist Colorado Health Care Providers in Implementing Electronic Health Record Systems and Achieving ‘Meaningful Use’ - EMR Daily News, 07/30/10
Recognizing that earlier in July, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT released rules outlining which health care providers will get government funding to support their implementation of electronic health record systems (EHR), leaders at the Colorado Regional Health Information Organization say it’s time for providers who don’t have an EHR system to start the process of purchasing one.

Local impact of health reform uncertain - The Fort Morgan Times, 07/27/10
Just how the new Affordable Care Act health care reform will impact Colorado, Morgan County and the eastern plains is not certain yet. Analysts are still trying to figure it all out, said Terri Hurst of the Colorado Rural Health Center, who was reporting to Progressive 15 members at the organization's annual standing committees meetings last week.

Colorado Rural Health Conference set to come to Breckenridge - Summit Daily News, 06/15/10
This year Breckenridge will provide the backdrop for the 19th annual Colorado Rural Health Conference, sponsored by the Colorado Rural Health Center. The conference is scheduled for July 1-2 at the Beaver Run Resort.

APPS: A new breed of responder - EMS1.com, 03/23/10
In cooperation with Colorado's Western Eagle County Ambulance District, Eagle County Public Health and the Colorado Rural Health Center, a new five-year prehospital care delivery model is being considered. With 200 hours of advanced training, these paramedics will be able to perform vital community-based care. The one line in that story that perfectly describes the vision is "Paramedics are, by job description, emergency medical providers. But what if they became involved in patient care before the accident happens?"

Huge Boost in Loan Repayments for Colorado Doctors, Nurses - Colorado Public Radio, 03/03/10
Recruiting doctors, nurses and other health workers to rural Colorado is hard. Offering to pay off student loans helps. This year there's ten times as much money available to do that, despite a shrinking state budget. CPR Health Reporter Eric Whitney explains.