The Alabama Rural Health Association, in an effort to learn more about its members, made a duration of the collection of four -part information in November 2022. Traveling to four locations, Montgomery, Atmore and Livingston, and Livingston participated in a series of listening sessions.
Duration thesis sessions, data on rural health in Alabama were presented, and then they broke into four groups to discuss what their experiences have been and what improvements could be made to policies and rural health strategy. Each group wrote their desired political improvements in the white pages of tear and then all attendees marked the 10 best preferred improvements with a sticky point. The results of each Roadshow were tabulated by the association and were amalgamated in a single tabulation, with similar categories combined for each visualization.
The results are as follows:
| Political needs | Results |
| Medicaid expansion | 41 |
| Access to mental health | 34 |
| Improvement of the workforce (recruitment, retention, compliance, scope of the practice) | 29 |
| Rural transport | 29 |
| Healthy education problems / health education | 27 |
| Increased use, coordination and support of the Telesalud | 20 |
| Social determinants of health (food insecurity, poverty, housing) | 15 |
| Broadband access | 11 |
| Increase supplier rates with Medicaid | 9 |
| Services coordination, especially transportation | 9 |
| NPS/CNM increased scope | 8 |
| Food insecurities / food deserts | 8 |
| Standardized credential | 7 |
| Increase supplier rates with Medicare | 7 |
| Students of Exosion to Health Professions | 6 |
| Comprehensive sex education in K-12 | 6 |
| Have enough doctors | 6 |
| Take tools and skills away from rural/primary doctors (sending everything to specialists) | 6 |
| Rural Residence Training | 6 |
| Learning with professional health schools, shadow | 5 |
| Price Department | 5 |
| Pharmaceutical cost | 5 |
| Family support | 5 |
| Elderly/disabled services | 5 |
| Too many people without insurance | 5 |
| Use of community health defenders | 5 |
| Increase state financing for ARMSA | 4 |
| Relationship construction | 4 |
| Focus on the multidisciplinary approach to PT care | 4 |
| Hospital vulnerability | 4 |
| EMS service availability | 4 |
| Doctor Rate Program problems | 3 |
| High administration cost | 3 |
| Standardized Claims Filling | 3 |
| Safety in schools | 3 |
| Community transport | 3 |
| Know the community in which you are working | 3 |
| Funds | 3 |
| RESOURCES AWAREND | 3 |
| Health capital | 3 |
| Maintain income sources (post covid) | 3 |
| Not having documents in the state correction (incentive problems) | 3 |
| Delay in the search for services costs | 3 |
| Encourage doctors to recruit premises | 2 |
| More cohesion with reg. Agencies | 2 |
| Substance abuse (opioid, etoh) | 2 |
A week after the conclusion of the Roadshow, the Board of Directors of the Alabama Rural Health Association in a special session in Person in CLANTON to discuss these results and the strategy for the association in the future. After a significant discussion, the following elements of action will be tasks.
- The Alabama Rural Health Association will continue its promotion towards the expansion of Medicaid, and the most immediate action is a letter sent to Governor Ivey corresponding to the National Rural Health Day that declares the need for this poor expanded coverage.
- The Alabama Rural Health Association will have a renewed approach to mental and behavioral health services, with a more direct need to provide collaboration with these services and primary care in the state. This may consist of higher educational sessions, connection for direct associations or subsidy opportunities.
- The Alabama Rural Health Association will establish a new effort to recruit rural constituents in its contact lists to directly help with literacy and health education efforts. Establishing a list of constituents will provide the association with an exit to educate the public. Education can consist of flyers, videos and other materials that help the public navigate the health system and understand the complexities of the system. The association can search for subsidies to produce these videos and other marketing efforts.
The Association appreciates its components for providing this direct feedback and helping to guide the policy in 2023 and beyond. We know that these efforts to continue to improve rural health have long been, but the final result will be worth it.