Learn about impact of transportation on rural health care

The Rural Health Information Hub has a new information guide and toolkit on rural transportation.

The guide focuses on the importance of transportation in rural health care: "The availability of reliable transportation impacts a person’s ability to access appropriate and well-coordinated healthcare, purchase nutritious food, and otherwise care for themselves," says the RHIHub website. "This guide focuses on how communities can provide transportation services to support access to rural healthcare, which may also benefit healthcare providers by decreasing inappropriate use of EMS services, improving utilization of healthcare services, decreasing no-show rates, and increasing access to health-supporting services. The guide also highlights transportation as a community-based service that can allow the elderly and people with disabilities to live successfully in a community rather than entering a long-term care facility or leaving the community."

Rural residents most likely to need transportation services to maintain their health include seniors, people with disabilities, low-income individuals and families, veterans, and people with special health-care needs who often must travel long distances to access care, the guide notes.

The toolkit, meanwhile, "provides guidance, resources, and model programs to aid the development, implementation, and evaluation of transportation programs to support rural communities."