MILLER COUNTY, Ga. (WTXL) - Many rural hospitals have lots of struggles.
Hometown Health, an association that represents dozens of rural hospitals in Georgia, says attracting doctors to smaller areas can be difficult because they have to compete with larger communities.
To help attract top talent, the Georgia Board for Physician Workforce has a program to repay school loans for doctors who work in rural areas.
The board tells us one place that does not have a practicing doctor is Echols County.
In our exploration of health care in rural communities, we find that it is sometimes an uphill battle. An example is the emergency room at the Campbellton-Graceville Hospital. It just shut its doors in Jackson County, Florida. The hospital filed chapter 11 bankruptcy.
In south Georgia, there's one woman who found out her hospital emergency room posed big financial challenges so she took a critical look at the problem and found a way to save the hospital from closing.
Robin Rau is the chief executive officer who turned Miller County Hospital from being on the verge of closing to thriving.
Rau took the position at the hospital in 2008. She walked into a situation where the hospital was failing financially, and too many people were turning to the ER for non-emergencies.
"I think throughout American people are really using the emergency room as their sole provider," said Rau.
So she started what's called the "population health management program."
After a patient's visit they follow up with them and work to keep the patient healthy. It's both for the uninsured and insured.
"The initial program was to develop a product where our LPNs, RNs ultimately pharmacists, social workers, health workers got involved in these individuals and provided them with medication assistance primary care physician free access to primary care at less of a cost, no cost medication," explained Rau.
James Logan Sr. is part of the program. Chest pains have been bothering him lately.
"I come up with the chest pains because my heart it ain't like it should be," Logan explained.
As a result of the program, the caseworker assigned to Logan helped him find a low cost cardiologist. The hospital is in the middle of the town of Colquitt.
Before Rau took over, Miller County Hospital was on financial life support.
The hospital only had $100,000 in the bank and couldn't pay its payroll.
One woman finding a way to save one hospital to help one community and thousands of people.
And Miller County Hospital keeps growing.
In 2010, the nursing home became the second facility in Georgia to house a ventilator unit on campus, then in 2015 it became the very first one to provide onsite dialysis to those patients.
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