Rural Veterans Literature Review

Weeks et al.’s (2008) state that “literature on rural veterans' health care needs warrants expansion and investment so that policy makers can make informed decisions in an environment of limited resources and competing interests.” In general, it’s understood that studies of access to care found that rural veterans have less access to care and were more vulnerable to travel barriers than their urban counterparts. Weeks et al.’s (2008) “conducted a review of the peer-reviewed literature that examined rural veterans' health care and found a paucity of relevant articles.” Among these few, most studies were diminutive, used older data, and consisted of uncontrolled, retrospective, explanatory studies of health care provided in rural VA settings. …show more content…
Schooley et al.’s (2010) states that The survey and focus group findings suggest that many individuals favor telephone services over Internet-enabled services (56.5 percent vs. 13.2 percent). This may be explained due to age-related issues, as stated above, or because the telephone provides more suitable services for some health issues (e.g., telephone triage, communication with individuals with certain disabilities). Utilizing the benefits of telephone-based healthcare with the benefits of electronic services (e.g., telephone triage operators accessing patients’ electronic health record or personal health record) may offer not only a short-term solution until high-speed Internet access becomes more prevalent but also long-term solutions for certain individuals (e.g., those who cannot travel or are less likely to travel for healthcare services) or for those in need of specialty services (e.g., physician …show more content…
Health access problems span both transportation and health infrastructures. Schooley et al.’s (2010) explains that while few respondents in this study used Internet-enabled health services, somewhat more used transportation-related Web sites for planning health-related trips. Schooley et al.’s (2010) offers that one consideration for information system designers and managers would be to put together online transportation services, such as public transit planning (i.e., buses, trains), travel route mapping, traffic congestion information, and related data in a more easily handy fashion for those patients who are planning required health visits. Easily accessible information about healthcare-specific transportation services could also prove