The Institute of Medicine’s Committee on the Future of Rural Health has invited a number of experts to convene, at the National Academies’ Keck Center (conference room 100) March 1-2, 2004, for a workshop on the Future of Rural Health: A Quality Focus. Read agenda for workshop

The workshop is an opportunity to augment the knowledge and expertise of the committee by a focused discussion on key areas relevant to building an agenda for sustainable quality improvements in health care systems in rural settings by obtaining input from researchers, providers, and other interested members of the public.

The objectives of this workshop are to better identify and understand the characteristics that are unique to rural environments; to aid the committee in mapping out those characteristics that model rural community health care systems should meet in terms of, say, health care delivery, both physical and behavioral, information and communication technology infrastructure, payment policies, and quality monitoring and reporting, and other relevant areas. The attendees will think through how best to make changes in a rural setting in the key health care areas.

The workshop will open with a presentation on: overview of the provision of quality health care to rural populations; building quality health care systems with a population-based focus, and the challenges in rural areas to move the quality agenda forward. Participants will then discuss and identify issues pertaining to:

• Population health; Rural Perspectives,
• Interaction of People with Technology,
• Workforce: Training, Deployment, and Support,
• Payment for quality performance: Rural Realities,
• Achieving the six aims for Quality in rural communities.

The workshop will attempt to link the research with some of the operational issues involved in applying and utilizing research in service settings specific to the needs of rural communities.

Participants will include members of the Committee on the Future of Rural Health Care; experts on rural issues; providers; and others

This is a public meeting but pre-registration is now closed.

Workshop Agenda