Photo By: Keith Clark (NV)
Another year has come and another successful NOSORH Annual Meeting is in the books! NOSORH would like to thank the Georgia Office for their support during the planning process and for being such gracious hosts. Special thanks to Dr. Alana Knudson of the NORC Walsh Center for Rural Health Analysis, who offered to forego her presentation time in order to allow participants an option to leave the meeting site early due to the approaching hurricane. Another thanks to the planning committee for putting together an agenda that was well received with attendees, whose feedback on the evaluation showed that this work did not go unnoticed. As one member noted, “The general sessions provided a nice balance of topics, with a blend of the typical updates and new topics to create a nice full agenda. The content provided was relevant and provided good depth in each topic.”
Dr. Mary Wakefield kicked off the meeting with a thoughtful discussion on the current state of rural healthcare in the United States and how SORH directly impacts that work and a reminder to consider partnerships with a wide variety of stakeholders as we strive to improve rural health. Tom Morris and Tori Leach provided a thought-provoking update and called for input from SORH on workforce, collaboratives, and growing the impact of federal programs. Two distinct sessions on rural health policy gave two sides of the story; what work is being done to directly impact your work through NOSORH, and another about how you can better operate given the current policy surrounding rural health. Each day featured breakout sessions that ranged from Visualizing Data, Communicating the Work of your SORH, Improving Behavioral Health Collaboration, and Oral Health Networks in Rural Communities.
“It is really the State Office of Rural Health engagement that makes this meeting such a great event. We learn so much from being able to hear about SORH work,” said Chris Salyers, Education and Services Director. “Their willingness to share their work is a huge value to us as we plan future program and educational activities.”
The sentiment was echoed by new SORH staff as well. “As a new director, this meeting was very beneficial from the content of the presentations to the added value of spending time with each sponsor,” stated one member. “The best and most beneficial aspect was meeting other SORH staff from around the country. Everyone was professional, courteous, and very helpful in providing answers to ensure I was as much information as I could handle, yet making themselves available even after the meeting. I could sense the passion for rural health is very genuine.”
Please click here to access the meeting presentations on the NOSORH website. Also, if you haven’t filled out the meeting evaluation, please click here.
As always, thanks to the following sponsors and exhibitors for your support of NOSORH and State Offices of Rural Health:
Gold Level Sponsors:
Hall Render
iVantage Health Analytics
Stroudwater Associates
Silver Level Sponsors:
Association for Rural Health Professional Coding
Cerner
Custom Learning Systems Group, Ltd.
DentaQuest
Healthcare Services Group
Health Connect Networks
Helmsley Charitable Trust
NetworxHealth
Registry Partners
The Compliance Team
Wipfli
Non-profit Exhibitors:
3RNet
Foundation for Health Leadership and Innovation
National Center for the Analysis of Healthcare Data
National Rural Health Resource Center
RHIhub
Rural PREP