If their hospital is not doing well, they can encourage that hospital board and administrator to undertake community market surveys, define what needs to be done, and then get on with doing it. Look for innovation in monitoring patients at home, supporting nurse practitioners and physician s assistants in remote clinics, and some particular niches such as pre-anesthesia consultation and examination. I do think that specialty care is becoming more available in rural areas, because managed care is cutting down the amount of specialty work in the metro areas. In some cases it s specialists moving to rural areas, in some cases itinerant clinics, and in some cases telehealth. More generally, rural health and health care are improving, particularly in Appalachia, and ARC has contributed a lot to these changes.
Health professionals are more available.
Some mountain hospitals are very impressive. These days you may get stuck on a mountain road behind a mobile magnetic resonance imaging van as well as a coal truck. Roads are better. Water and sewage systems are more widely available. Underlying all this is the fundamental issue of jobs and economic development.