This project will assess the degree to which rural hospitals engage in activities that facilitate community responsiveness and the provision of community-oriented services, and identify environmental and institutional factors that facilitate the successful implementation of the IOM "Quality through Collaboration for Rural America" report recommendations. The project will use a mix of descriptive and multivariate statistics to analyze cross-sectional data on hospital and community characteristics for the years 1996 to 2004 from the American Hospital Association Annual Survey and the Area Resource File.

Publications

• Far From the City: Community Orientation and Responsiveness of Rural Hospitals
  Upper Midwest Rural Health Research Center
  Date: 05/2008
  This policy brief reports the findings of a national study focused on variation in hospital community orientation and responsiveness across differing rural contexts.