I am a second semester senior nursing student at UWEC. Living in Eau Claire, WI some people may call this a large community in the midwest but compared to many larger cities we lack many of the healthcare oppurtonities that a larger city such as milwaukee or chicago may have. Yes I argee that early access to care is an important part in saving someones life in emergent situations. And it is not just the physicians that we would need to put in these rural communities. Even if we could find physicians, there would still be a need for the rest of the health care staff, at the time of a traumatic event and the facilities.At this point I feel that our best option is similar to what Luther Midelfort Mayo has done in Eau Claire; creating community hospitals that can treat many minor problems, but work to diagnose and then transfer the patient via ambulance or helicoptor to eau claire, and possibly rochestor to treat the problem. For example if someone presented at the ER in some small town population 500, 1 hour from Eau Claire with chest pain and STEMI elevation. It would be more cost effective and provide better care to let the physicians diagnose the patient with an MI, and transfer him to Eau Claire where there is a cath lab, and can preform emergency open heart surgery, and have a critical care unit to take care of him, rather than leave him in Barron WI, where the only option is to treat the patient medicaly, not surgicaly.On a side note, Although Eau Claire could be considered a rather large community, Luther Midelfort hospital normally does not keep peds patients in house, rather transfer them to the cites or Mayo, the average daily census for pediatric patients at luther in Eau Claire is .72. At Sacred Heart the other local hospital the cenus is slightly higher.My thought for the best way to provide care is to aim at primary care and secondary prevention in the rural communites, where they can refer to larger hospitals, so there are able to seek more cares, where there is more specialization, and surgical options.
The most important aspect to care is for primary access to care