Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility
We're Hiring 👋
Consumers
Resources
(866) 971-8986

Connected Care, Anywhere: Solving Rural Access Challenges

Rural care models are being reshaped by workforce shortages, long travel distances, limited specialty access, and infrastructure gaps. Hear how healthcare leaders are using connected care to extend clinical reach, strengthen local care, and build more sustainable access for rural communities.
Flying mail

Send this to my inbox

Send this to my inbox

Speakers
Lacey_Finkbeiner_headshot
Lacey Finkbeiner
Clinical Informatics Manager
dr anderson
Dr. Bradley Anderson
Medical Director of Virtual Care
Jared OSU headshot
Jared Droze
Director of Virtual Care
AbbyLosinski
Abby Losinski
System Director, Patient Access
SaulMiller
Saul Miller
Provider Solutions
Key learnings:
  • Rural access strategies work best when they reflect local realities, including staffing gaps, transportation barriers, broadband limitations, and missing services. 
  • Extending care does not have to mean replacing local teams. Virtual clinicians can support nurses, APPs, and other trusted staff already embedded in the community. 
  • Community infrastructure can become care infrastructure. Schools, tribal organizations, extension offices, libraries, and mobile units can create new access points.  
  • Sustainability depends on more than visit volume. Programs need to reduce unnecessary transfers, support rural hospital viability, build staff confidence, and earn repeat patient use.  
  • Clinical depth matters as virtual care expands. Remote physical exams and stronger diagnostic capabilities can help clinicians decide who can safely stay local and who needs escalation.

Rethink where care happens and who delivers it 

Across the discussion, one thing was clear: solving rural access is not simply about recreating the traditional clinic visit on a screen. It requires rethinking how scarce clinical resources are distributed and bringing care into the places where rural patients already are. 

Horizon Health is using virtual care to help providers support more than one community without spending hours traveling between clinics. OSU Medicine is taking a similarly distributed approach through rural hospitals, schools, mobile units, tribal partnerships, and community health workers. These models allow remote clinical expertise to extend farther while nurses and other trusted local team members continue to provide an important physical presence. 

One of our providers is physically at a clinic only one day a week and supports it through telehealth the other four days, while continuing to see patients at her primary clinic. She’s able to support two rural communities without disrupting her schedule.

Lacey Finkbeiner

Clinical Informatics Manager

Build around the barriers patients actually face 

More access points do not automatically create more equitable access. The panel repeatedly came back to the importance of understanding why patients are still missing care, whether the barrier is transportation, broadband, time away from work, workforce availability, or simply being too far from the services they need. 

That changes how connected care is designed. It can mean putting access into schools so families do not lose most of a workday traveling to an appointment, incorporating community health workers to address social needs, or bringing specialty expertise into an existing rural clinic. The starting point is not necessarily the technology. It is identifying who the current system is still failing to reach. 

We often design for the 80%, but the 20% we leave behind are often the people facing the greatest disparities. We have to design for them, too.

Abby Losinski

System Director, Patient Access

Turn trusted community networks into part of the care model 

Some of the most interesting examples from the panel came from looking beyond traditional healthcare settings. Schools, tribal organizations, telecommunications providers, mobile clinics, and other local organizations are already deeply embedded in rural communities. Connected care creates an opportunity to make those relationships part of the access strategy. 

OSU Medicine, for example, is working with Oklahoma’s county extension offices, a network with a presence across all 77 counties. Horizon Health described working with tribal entities and telecommunications partners to address the connectivity needed to make remote care work reliably. These partnerships help health systems build access around the infrastructure and relationships that already exist locally.

We partnered with county extension offices across Oklahoma to bring healthcare into a network that already has deep ties to rural communities. It gives us another way to reach people who might otherwise go without care.

Jared Droze

Director of Virtual Care

Make virtual care clinically meaningful 

For connected care to become a sustainable part of rural healthcare, the panel emphasized that access cannot come at the expense of clinical quality. That means defining what can appropriately be handled virtually, equipping clinicians with enough information to make confident decisions, and maintaining a clear path to in-person care when it is needed. 

Dr. Bradley Anderson shared a recent example from an OSU Medicine rural hospital. A patient with pneumonia was a candidate for being transferred to a larger city for a higher level of care. Using TytoCare, Dr. Anderson was able to evaluate the patient virtually, including listening to his lungs, heart, and abdomen. The patient remained at the rural hospital, received treatment locally, and was able to go home the following day.

I had a case just last night. I admitted a patient with pneumonia to a rural hospital. The ER physician was concerned that he might need to be transferred to a larger city. I was able to see the patient and keep him there in that rural community. He was treated for his pneumonia and electrolyte issues, and he was able to discharge the next day doing much better.

Bradley Anderson, DO

Medical Director for Virtual Care

Sustainability comes down to trust and outcomes 

The panel also challenged the idea that success can be measured by visit volume alone. Sustainable programs have to work for patients, clinicians, and the rural organizations delivering care. 

That can mean tracking whether patients return to use a service again, whether staff are confident enough to offer it consistently, and whether rural hospitals can retain patients who would otherwise have been transferred. At one OSU Medicine site, Dr. Anderson reported an 80% reduction in unnecessary transfers. Horizon Health has seen its telehealth volume continue to grow as staff and patients have become more comfortable with the model. 

The common thread is trust. Technology has to work reliably, clinicians need confidence in the care they can provide, and patients need to see real value in using it. That is what moves connected care from a pilot to an established part of rural care delivery.