Exploring the Gap in Urban and Rural Health Care For Children
While it’s long been clear that children in rural areas have reduced access to some kinds of health care services compared to their urban peers, understanding the specifics of the care gap has proven difficult, because population-level data on utilization is split among many insurers and providers.
But the accountable care organization Partners For Kids® has responsibility for the health of more than 400,000 children covered by the Medicaid Managed Care plans in Ohio, so it does have access to a geographically diverse data set. Partners For Kids, created in 1996 by Nationwide Children’s Hospital, is the largest and oldest pediatric ACO in the United States.
Physicians and researchers at Partners For Kids and the Center for Health Equity and Outcomes Research at Nationwide Children’s Abigail Wexner Research Institute have begun using that data to refine the understanding of the rural care gap, and a recent study shows just how stark the difference in pediatric home health service utilization is. It’s titled “Left Behind Again: Rural Home Health Services in a Medicaid Pediatric Accountable Care Organization” and is published in The Journal of Rural Health.
“It can be hard to conduct this kind of research, both because of the data and because so many population efforts are focused in cities,” says Kelly Kelleher, MD, vice president of Community Health at Nationwide Children’s and senior author of the study. “But it’s important for all of us to know what challenges people in rural communities face so we can better address them.”