{"title":"What Might the Past Suggest About Rural Emergency Services Amidst Critical Access Hospitals' Decline?","authors":"Siân Lewis-Bevan, Stephen Powell","doi":"10.1001/amajethics.2025.530","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Critical access and other rural hospitals have struggled to remain open, which exacerbates inequity in rural residents' access to routine and emergency health services and strains already-taxed rural emergency medical services (EMS). This article discusses the recent history of rural hospital closures and their effects on rural emergency care. This article also suggests modifications to EMS policy and practice that could improve rural community members' access to health services and bolster EMS services in rural areas.</p>","PeriodicalId":38034,"journal":{"name":"AMA journal of ethics","volume":"27 7","pages":"E530-536"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"AMA journal of ethics","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1001/amajethics.2025.530","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"Social Sciences","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Critical access and other rural hospitals have struggled to remain open, which exacerbates inequity in rural residents' access to routine and emergency health services and strains already-taxed rural emergency medical services (EMS). This article discusses the recent history of rural hospital closures and their effects on rural emergency care. This article also suggests modifications to EMS policy and practice that could improve rural community members' access to health services and bolster EMS services in rural areas.
期刊介绍:
The AMA Journal of Ethics exists to help medical students, physicians and all health care professionals navigate ethical decisions in service to patients and society. The journal publishes cases and expert commentary, medical education articles, policy discussions, peer-reviewed articles for journal-based and audio CME, visuals, and more. Since its inception as an editorially-independent journal, we promote ethics inquiry as a public good.