Quality, Safety Top Rural Health Leaders' Priorities

• The top priority for rural leaders over the next three years is quality and patient safety, the second is physician recruitment and retention, and the third is reimbursement. Their non-rural counterparts’ top three priorities are cost reduction, quality/patient safety, and developing an accountable care organization.
• Only 28%have positive or very positive assessment of the Patient Protection Act. That's compared to 38% of their non-rural colleagues.
•  Survey respondents place a high value on nursing, with 74% reporting that the CNO is part of their senior executive team, compared to 58% of non-rural leaders. Not surprisingly, 29% say the nurse supply will have a strongly negative impact on their organizations, compared to 2% of non-rural leaders.

The high impact of nursing staff in rural health systems is clear. And seeing as how patient satisfaction scores will soon be tied to reimbursement, it's no coincidence that leaders want to engage nurses and elevate them into positions of senior management. Nurses are key to boosting patient satisfaction scores.

There's much more to glean from the Industry Survey. Other sectors highlighted include Leadership, Finance, Marketing, Technology, Quality, Physicians, Health Plans, Nurse Leaders, and Service Lines.    Click here, to see full results.