Report Type: Rural Health

Texas A&M Rural and Community Health Institute: Rural hospitals are closing at an increasing rate endangering the health of 20% of our population. The

A new report from the A&M Rural and Community Health Institute at the Texas A&M University Health Science Center outlines new ways forward for rural Texas communities facing or experiencing a hospital closure. The Episcopal Health Foundation (EHF), Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the T.L.L. Temple Foundation sponsored the report.

The Episcopal Health Foundation commissioned the Center for Community Health Development at the Texas A&M School of Public Health to prepare a case study and a companion toolkit to help communities understand the value of and process for creating Community Health Resource Centers to serve their populations. The case study documents the process through which six Community Health Resource Centers (CHRC) were created in five counties in the Brazos Valley Region of Central Texas.

Texas communities facing a rural hospital closure should not solely concentrate on whether or not to close a hospital, but instead focus on the available health resources in the surrounding area.

Changing demographics, rural hospital closures and uncertainly about changes to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) are all taking a damaging toll on the ability of Texas rural populations to access health services. Those are some of the findings of a new report by the Texas Organization of Rural & Community Hospitals (TORCH) examining the current crisis facing rural healthcare across the state. EHF sponsored the report.