Rudy Reinhardt with the Heartland Rural Health Network Inc. in Avon Park said there's a problem with health care.
The problem is, in many areas, is the fact that rural areas tend not to have abundant health services, forcing many people to travel outside the area when they need care, whether it be for accidental head trauma or care for a chronic illness, like cancer.
Reinhardt hopes a grant from the Department of Health and Human Services will forge partnerships between local health care providers and hospitals and treatment centers in major metropolitan areas, bringing that level of treatment to the local level.
If the system is well integrated and people are well informed, then they don't have to travel all over for care, Reinhardt said.
The grant provides $199,008 each year for the next three years to fund this proposal for an "integrated health care delivery system," Reinhardt said. The mission, then, of the Heartland Rural Health Network is to figure out the best way to provide quality health care to rural residents.
One problem, for example, is airlifting trauma patients. It's necessary because in large parts of the area the network covers - Highlands, Hardee, DeSoto, Polk, and Charlotte counties - there is not a local trauma center. People seriously injured in industrial accidents or vehicle wrecks, or who have suffered blows to the head, must be flown via Aeromed helicopter to Tampa General Hospital's trauma center.
"There is still a lot of opportunity to provide that here," Reinhardt said.
Also, many people who need cancer treatments must go to the Tampa Bay area for treatment centers there, and family members have to drive that distance to support their loved ones.
"(We) shouldn't have to go to so many hospitals to get care," Reinhardt said. Hopefully, the system Heartland Rural Health Network hopes to provide will prevent each person from having to visit any one of more than 100 different hospitals in central Florida, to maybe visiting only a half dozen of the closest facilities.
Reinhardt said that the Heartland Rural Health Network Inc. was created by an act of the Florida Legislature in 1993 and was certified in 1995.
Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson announced at the beginning of May that nearly $13.8 million in first-year funds for 73 Rural Health Outreach and Network Development grants would be awarded to strengthen health care systems in rural communities and encourage innovative approaches to rural health care delivery.
The 20 Rural Health Network Development grants, totaling more than $3.9 million, would provide support to rural-based health care organizations to work collaboratively to integrate administrative, clinical, financial or technology-related activities, as well as:
§ Connect rural consumers to online health information;
§ Increase access to pharmacy services through remote dispensing technology, referrals to pharmaceutical manufacturers' discount programs, and covering costs of interim medications; and
§ Permit federally designated Critical Access Hospitals to contract jointly for specialty medical and business consulting services.
Another fiscal year 2003 Rural Health Outreach Grant Awards in Florida include;
§ $200,000 to the Guidance Clinic of the Middle Keys in Marathon.
§ $200,000 to the Big Bend Rural Health Network in Perry
§ $199,870 to the Lake Okeechobee Rural Health Network in South Bay