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Health Care Accessibility for Chronic Illness Management and End-of-Life Care: A View from Rural America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Kathryn E. Artnak ,
Richard M. McGraw  and
Vayden F. Stanley
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Extract

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) reporting on the quality of health care in America recommends six aims for achieving the health care system we could have. Together with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) Triple Aim initiative, a framework has emerged to challenge providers, educators, and policymakers to remake the health care system according to specific objectives: to provide care that is safe, effective, patient-centered, timely, efficient, and equitable to more people at a price we can afford. Complicating this mission of better prevention and better care at a lower cost is a daunting demographic: January of 2011 marked the month and year that the first of the baby boomers turned 65. The U.S. Census Bureau in May 2010 projected the number of Americans of this age and over to reach 88 million by 2050, more than double the current figure of 40.2 million. Parekh and Barton forecast in stark detail what it will be like to address these burgeoning numbers of older Americans with comorbidities, including the fact that over 20% of the population currently experiences at least two chronic medical conditions.

Type
Symposium
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 39 , Issue 2 , Summer 2011 , pp. 140 - 155
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2011

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