Number of Patients Dying in Rural, Isolated Hospitals Up by 13 Percent

Many of America's most isolated regions serve rural communities that do not have the easiest access to health care, with some of the closest alternatives to hospitals over 35 miles away. According to a Harvard School of Public Health study, death rates at these hospitals are significantly higher than national average, and unfortunately, also on the rise.

The study found that these critical access hospitals that provide treatment for those in many rural areas have death rates that have risen a significant amount by 0.1 percent each year, reaching 13.3 percent in 2010, despite that the mortality rate has slightly dropped in other hospitals.

Study authors John Orav and Dr. Ashish Jah of Harvard have also suggested that the hospitals' care may suffer because they do not have the latest sophisticated technology or specialists to treat the increasingly elderly and frail rural popuations.

Yet some have cautioned against making such assumptions.

"Mortality is jue one small part of the picture of what qualities mean," Brock Slabach said according to Think Progress, an executive at the National Rural Health Association.

 A representative from the American Hospital Association also said the findings may not give an accurate representation of quality at small hospitals.

For example, small hospitals may selectively transfer some patients that could benefit from aggressive care to nearby hospitals.

"One reason for seeing a rise in mortality in some (critical access hospitals) could be because the hospital may tend to keep patients that are too sick for transfer or not stable enough," the representative told Reuters Health in an email.