Stress is a Public Health Crisis
April is Stress Awareness Month. You might not think stress needs awareness, given how often we joke about our stress levels with coworkers or discuss it with our doctor when our blood pressure spikes. But there’s something about stress that really does need awareness – the danger it presents to our health, especially for disadvantaged […]
Nursing Careers Are Red Hot – and It’s More Than the “Fauci Effect”
Are nurses the new rock stars? It sure seems like it. Nursing programs are seeing a sky-high number of applications; Google reported that “how to become a nurse” was a top search term of 2020. Nursing’s always been a popular career, but now it’s red hot. This seems almost counterintuitive, given the reports of stressed-out healthcare […]
5 Lessons from the Native American Vaccine Rollout
The story of COVID-19 is a kaleidoscopic one, shifting in color and shape to reflect each patient’s background. There is no single narrative that describes the pandemic experience. Economics, ideology, and population health all play a role, with much ink and airtime devoted to the nuances driving infection rates and outcomes. The same holds true […]
Bringing Specialty Care to Tribal Health
Of all the challenges facing Indigenous health facilities, one of the biggest is the lack of specialty care in tribal health. Remote locations, high turnover, and budget shortfalls all lead to a common scenario: a facility without the right clinical expertise. Urban patients have their choice of 263 specialists for every 100,000 people; rural residents […]
Solving Healthcare Process Barriers at Tribal Facilities
From limited resources to a lack of adequate staffing, tribal hospitals and clinics face numerous challenges. The resulting healthcare process barriers often lead not only to poor patient outcomes, but sometimes forced closure and loss of access to care in the greater community. The good news: staff can improve their care delivery – and population […]
Building Clinician Diversity: Helping Indigenous Communities Take the Healthcare Reins
One of the most pressing issues in tribal healthcare is the extreme shortfall of Native American providers and lack of clinician diversity. The Association of American Medical Colleges reports that fewer than 1% of students identify as American Indian or Alaska Native. Not surprisingly, physician vacancy rates are nearly 30% in some areas of Indian […]
