Healthcare

Defunding healthcare is impacting all of us, and will result in rising morbidity and mortality throughout rural America. Healthcare is political. As healthcare providers, we and our patients are on the receiving-end of political decisions.  We stand at the collision point between top-down political decisions adversely impacting healthcare and the bottom-up reality facing our patients. What can we do? 

Attend and together help us write the Declaration on America’s Rural Healthcare Crisis that we will issue to Congress, the White House, and other elected leaders.

This one-day conference will help you take action to deal with the challenges we face due to cuts in funding for patient care, scientific research, and disaster preparedness. The current political climate is not hopeless. We are stronger together. At this conference, we will share ways to do more with less while informing the national healthcare debate with our patient-centered knowledge. We will explore ways to challenge top-down wishful thinking with the bottom-up realities of caring for our patients.

Rural healthcare is the “canary in the coalmine” for healthcare nationwide. For rural communities, healthcare is rapidly sliding toward crisis.  We recognize it’s bigger:

The United States today, as we are all aware, appears to be in a healthcare crisis with increasing healthcare costs, increasing healthcare demands by Americans, a shrinking number of working physicians, a growing trend of Wall Street health system mergers and acquisitions, the increasing trend of de-personalizing the physician-patient experience prompting worsening patient satisfaction while at the same time embracing artificial intelligence to replace many common physician tasks and duties in the name of “efficiency”.  Ed Lopez PA-C, Washington Medical Commission

As healthcare professionals working in our local communities, we cannot turn away when someone needs our help. Not only do we care in our hearts, we are called to serve as a matter of ethics and, in some cases, the law. 

• Attend in person or online.
• Four workshops go right to the point and build action steps for all to share.
• Hosted by:

Vashon Island Medical Reserve Corps
VashonBePrepared
University of Washington Office of Rural Programs
Washington Area Health Education Center