CHARLESTON, W.Va – The American Heart Association is continuing its efforts to improve healthcare in rural areas with its second annual Rural Health Summit, held in Charleston on Friday.
This year’s summit, held at the Vandalia Health CAMC Center for Learning & Research, is titled “Intersection & Innovation in Appalachia” and focuses specifically on the challenges facing the Appalachian region.
What we want to do is, of course, educate people and help them understand what the challenges are, but we also want to bring experts in who can talk about the things that they do, the successes they’ve had, and the challenges they’ve had so that everybody walks away with a better understanding of what’s going on in the region,” summit committee chair Bob Pepper said.
Stakeholders from 13 states came to Charleston for the summit to exchange ideas and experiences regarding rural healthcare in the region. Organizers hope that can spark an exchange of information that helps people even beyond West Virginia.
“When you have a variety of community groups, you have academic medical centers, and you have practitioners like myself, community organizers, all get together in the same room, and brainstorm about different ideas to use the resources that are available and perhaps get more resources into rural health activities, it can only be a positive thing,” cardiologist Dr. Patrick Thomas said.
For the people with boots on the ground in rural health every day, the summit provides an opportunity to tell the real-life stories of providing care in these settings. Some want to show that good things can come from working in difficult environments.
“A lot of times, when people think of rural areas, they think of the challenges, but we really want to share our success stories with each other and to inspire change within the communities that need us the most,” American Heart Association Community Impact Director Holly Mitchell said.
Topics at the summit include mobile health units, tobacco and nicotine use, resource allocation, and more. Pepper noted one issue that serves as a through-line in the conversation.
“For a lot of people, the biggest area is access—trying to get access so that people can go to a physician, can go get x-rays, and go to a hospital, and in many cases, that’s just not possible,” he said.
One of the greatest feelings coming out of the summit’s conversations is hope. Mitchell believes that Appalachia has a lot to offer in healthcare, and there are ways to make more good happen.
“We recognize Appalachia as a unique place, with unique opportunities too, so we want to definitely hone in on those, because we are so special compared to other parts of the United States that we definitely have needs, but we definitely have ways to fix them, too,” she said
This is the first rural health summit held by the American Heart Association to focus specifically on Appalachia.