Episode 59. Accelerating Better Health Outcomes in Rural America Interview with Mindy Cook and Kallie Provost
Episode 59. Michelle Intro
Michelle Rathman: Hello, one and all and welcome back to a new episode of The Rural Impact. I'm Michelle Rathman, and I mean it when I say thank you for joining us for another dot connecting conversation. Now, full disclosure, this episode is not one of our normal episodes. In fact, it's what we call a 'What's Your Impact' episode.
And these discussions really work to highlight the work of people and organizations making a real difference in rural communities. And our topic today happens to focus on the great work of the American Heart Association. Now, the American Heart Association was founded in 1924 and earlier this year, they joined the Rural Impact as a partner.
Because this wonderful organization continues its tireless work and efforts to confront health challenges facing nearly 66 million people in rural US communities across this country, and they do so through science, education, and my favorite activity advocacy. So since joining The Rural Impact, you have heard me talk about the American Heart Association's Rural Healthcare Outcomes Accelerator Program, which really, again, is working to ensure Americans living in rural areas have the best possible chance of survival and the highest quality of life attainable by promoting consistent, timely, and appropriate evidence-based care.
So, the Rural Healthcare Outcomes Accelerator Program is a three year program, and the window to join is just about ready to close, and that is on June 30th, which means that there is still time to join and to enroll if you are a rural health leader or a clinician working in this space.
Because when you do so, you are gonna be part of an initiative that is eliminating rural health disparities and that has already provided hundreds of critical access hospitals across this country with no cost access to the American Heart Association's 'Get with the Guidelines', quality programs for coronary artery disease, heart failure, and stroke.
So, with this in mind, let me tell you just a little bit more about the guest joining me today because you are going to hear from Mindy Cook. And Mindy is the National Senior Director for Rural Healthcare Quality Outcomes Research and Analytics at the American Heart Association National Center.
And I'm also pleased to introduce you to Kallie Provost. Kallie is the TCD Coordinator at the Cox Monett Hospital in Monnet, Missouri, which also happens to be a certified level three stroke and STEMI center recognized with four national awards from the American Heart Association. Now before you put yourself, as I always invite you to do into your podcast frame listening of mind, I do wanna leave you with this because I think it's important.
You know, we have had many conversations on this podcast about policy and the impact on rural hospitals and rural health organizations, and it's important that we do. We talk a lot about their, vulnerability, about how hundreds are on the brink of closure. But I think through this conversation you'll hear what I hope you do, which is that there is a bright side, a more positive side of the story because we are introducing you to the work of the American Heart Association and all that they are doing to provide clinicians and communities with support and resources to address the fact that, again, data and numbers are very important here.
People living in rural communities live an average of three years less, three years fewer I should say, than their urban counterparts. They have a 40% higher likelihood of developing heart disease. And another tragic number is that those who live in rural America are at a 30% higher risk of stroke. This program aims to bridge that gap.
So, I'm really glad that you joined us for this conversation. My heartfelt thanks to the American Heart Association. I've been eager to have this conversation, eager to share it with you. So with that said, I am ready. I hope you are too. What are we waiting for? Let's go.
Michelle Rathman: Hey everyone. Good morning. This is a very special episode of The Rural Impact, an extra episode as we call them, and I am so happy to be joined by Mindy Cook, senior Director of Rural Healthcare Quality with the American Heart Association. Mindy, welcome. Thank you for carving out some time to be with us today.
Mindy Cook: Thank you for having me. This is great.
Michelle Rathman: For our listeners you know, that we made a really great announcement that American Heart Association has done us the honor and partner with us on a very specific and special program. One that is, dare I say, very near and dear to my own heart. Our listeners, Mindy, they, they know that my rural roots go back to Minnesota.
I have, my father was born in, very rural community. They farmed in Clearwater, Minnesota. You can hear my accent there as it, it kind of kicks in as my kids say, what happened to you? I'm like, I went back to Minnesota. And unfortunately when I was a child, we witnessed uncle after uncle after uncle succumb to heart disease and stroke.
My grandfather, a very young uncle of mine, I think in the age of 40, another uncle was stroke. Heart. My father had heart disease. So, three quadruple bypasses, I think by the time that it was over. And so, I think about this all the time, Mindy, and I think about all the rural hospitals that I work with, where there is very little cardiac cardiovascular care, maybe a specialist that comes in. Maybe once a month sees a small contingent of patients and basically just monitors medication.
And so Mindy, I want you to tell us all about the program that you all have put together for critical access hospitals. It's very unique to that size hospital. And what, then we'll kind of talk about a call to action because there's a window of time left for rural hospitals to get involved with this. So, the floor is yours. Tell us about it.
Mindy Cook: Yeah, well thanks Michelle for this opportunity and I too, grew up in rural Midwest. I grew up in rural North Dakota, currently reside in rural Minnesota and had a similar experience leading up to my career choice in nursing. And, you know, when I was in nursing school, I had a parent who had a catastrophic cardiovascular event, and my Grandmother died of a stroke. And, and so I totally was motivated at that time to go into cardiovascular care nursing and did that for 12 years before I came to the association. I've been at the association now for 13 plus years.
A passion for me while I've been here the entire time has been rural health and cardiovascular and stroke care excellence.
And so I'm really excited and have been excited about this initiative that we've been working on now for two and a half years called the Rural Healthcare Outcomes Accelerator. It came to fruition because in 2020 there was a presidential advisory published really identifying and calling attention to trends in mortality, differences between our rural residents and urban residents due to cardiovascular diseases and stroke.
They have a lower life expectancy, higher mortality rates, higher incidents of stroke, and higher incidents of cardiovascular disease overall. And that gap has been widening for nearly 30 years. So, at this point, the heart association then chose to really step in intentionally to mobilize some interventions in three key areas, and those were quality, advocacy, and prevention.
Michelle Rathman: Okay.
Mindy Cook: I work in the quality side of the association, and so I was tasked with launching the Rural Healthcare Outcomes Accelerator and really looking at our quality programs to see if we are meeting rural hospitals where they are with performance measures and programs that support the care opportunities they have. The role of rural hospitals in cardiovascular and stroke care is vital to the communities and people living in the communities they serve. And the things they do in the acute phases of early management of stroke and cardiac patient care are just as important as the specialty services that follow when that patient usually transfers onto a higher level center.
Michelle Rathman: You know, Mindy, I think about an instance where working in a rural community in Illinois where had there not been a hospital that had the I would say the training not, you know, just 'cause you have a bed doesn't mean you have the capacity to do that kind of work.
And were not for this hospital. Very true story. Having already adopted this program, the next nearest hospital was over the state border in Iowa, and we know that every second counts. Could you talk to us a little bit about that quality piece, because I, you know, many, many, many of our listeners are not clinical folks, and you know, what does that mean in terms of working with a clinical staff within an ER?
You know, in, in increasing their, if their proficiencies in certain areas, what does that part of the program look like?
Mindy Cook: Yeah. So, it really is all rooted in measurement, right? We can't know where we are or know where we need to go unless we measure. And our rural hospitals, you know, prior to this work and really haven't had a functional way to measure performance to the cardiovascular stroke and heart failure performance measures. The things they should be doing that are standard of care in the current clinical practice guidelines that they can and should do no matter what their access to specialty services are.
So we took those standards of care and developed them into programs and a series of performance measures for stroke, heart attack, chest pain, and heart failure patients. And that then allows rural hospitals to know kind of where that bar is and to support them in meeting those metrics.
We then put together education programs. We have continuing education, which is the type of education that clinicians need to maintain their professional licensure. We have learning collaboratives. We convene a quarterly learning collaborative around each condition, allowing rural clinicians to come together and learn about the latest recommendations, struggles other hospitals are having, meeting those performance measures, and how to get it done at their facility with the resources they have at hand. Then we also allow them and built a peer networking platform called the Community Network,
Michelle Rathman: Yes.
Mindy Cook: Where we post all of those resources and learnings in a place where they can access them anytime. We understand it's really hard for people to join live meetings and live offerings. So, we really make them accessible. They're all no cost, on demand trainings and they're all related to the current recommendations, how to accomplish it at whatever size facility you are at. And it allows you a way to connect with peers who have gotten it done and you wanna talk to directly.
I think you know, it's really been transformational to also work with our focus groups that come out of those learning collaboratives. Thankfully, we have small groups of volunteers that represent rural hospitals across the country that really take that extra time and help us develop resources like checklists and educational tools that are for the clinicians at the bedside, providing this care to help remind them when it's something that they don't do very often of how that process should go or to help them, you know, really know what the standard of care is at real time.
Michelle Rathman: I think that's a really good point, Mindy, because we say if you've seen one critical access hospital, you, you've seen one. But the reality is volumes matter. We do know in terms of improved quality outcomes, the more you do, the more proficient you become and so forth.
But in the case of rural, you don't have the luxury of the volume, but you have the responsibility of being able to perform at the highest level, even if it's only once a month or once a quarter, it might it be. So, you have to be able to have that, those support teams and be proficient and confident.
Mindy Cook: Absolutely. And you know, I think that's what the performance measures have done. They said, here's these 5, 7, 10 things that you know for every suspected stroke, every suspected MI, every heart failure patient they need to have while they're with you. And then the tools to help get that done.
Michelle Rathman: So you all are collecting data. And the best way to understand how impactful a program is, is to, I mean, it's great. You don't say, well, here's some tools, here's some materials here how. You are actually taking a look at those outcomes and, talk to us a little bit about that mechanism. What's in place there and, what kind of data are you collecting?
Mindy Cook: Yeah, so when hospitals join this program, they report the data that feeds into those performance measures through our 'Get with the Guidelines' registries. And that allows us to have a national benchmark for rural hospitals. And right now, we have about a thousand rural hospitals that are in that benchmark data.
We have a specific critical access, rural hospital data, and then an all-rural hospital data. So you can benchmark against like size facilities, not only rural hospitals, which has been a really a game changer to allow hospitals to see how they're performing against peers and really it's motivational to see that others in their same cohort, in the same type of facility, in the same geography, you know, that they are, are practicing within are performing at a level that's at the standard of care. So, I think that is motivational and really helps us all level up together.
Michelle Rathman: Yeah. And rather than it being a competition, it is and a meant kind of, I see it as a mentorship because it's, you know, everybody, all, all of you rise together. Because at the end of the day, uh, you know, I also think it's important for our listeners to know that critical access hospitals are not designed by any stretch of the imagination to receive a cardiac patient and then just take 'em back to surgery.
Mindy Cook: Right.
Michelle Rathman: know, this is not, this is not what's happening. What needs to happen is that really core, essential stabilization piece. I mean, great tip prevention number one, but you're bringing your ability to respond very quickly from the time they arrive to stabilize them, and then make sure they are appropriately so transferred to the next level of care.
Mindy Cook: Yeah, and I think there are some really important things that need to happen upstream, so it's not just, know, keeping them stable and transferring them. We really wanna encourage rural hospitals to start those upstream medications that make a difference in that patient's outcome. And that's what the performance measures are.
Michelle Rathman: Wow.
Mindy Cook: They are the additional cares, the medications, the assessments, the imaging, the tests that should be done early on to help with the rest of the care throughout that patient's continuum to help them at attain the best possible outcome.
Michelle Rathman: Handoffs as we call them.
Mindy Cook: Yeah.
Michelle Rathman: Handouts. Okay, Mindy, let's talk a little bit about some success stories before we tell folks how they can get involved with the program, because you do have some amazing success stories and I think that helps people. I say plants the seed thought that it could be me thought, you know, that this could be something that we achieve as well.
You know, some of the success stories and maybe some of the barriers that people perceived barriers that people can say, we can overcome that and this is why it's worth pursuing.
Mindy Cook: Yeah, so I mean a big success has been, you know, previous to this program our rural hospitals that were in our 'Get with the Guidelines' weren't able to attain recognition for achieving care excellence, and now I mentioned we have a thousand hospitals participating with us. In the last two years, we've been able to issue Care Excellence Awards to 500 of those hospitals really showing us that they have the capacity to meet care excellence in cardiovascular and stroke care. And they're doing it. They're doing it every, every day.
And we're gearing up now to issue our 2025 awards for rural hospitals. And I expect that number to, you know, double from where it was last year and will probably be nearer to around 800 hospitals being recognized this year, which is huge. We are so excited to share in their care excellence and to really promote those hospitals that are doing and providing the standard of care and going above and beyond to do that. So really, we're waiting for that in, in May, so we are looking forward to it.
But beyond that, we've had rural hospitals also step up and do model practice shares at conferences across the country in the last two and a half years. We've had 26 rural hospitals from all over, no particular state is overweighted there, share at national conferences, including the International Stroke Conference, the scientific sessions at NRHA National Rural Health Association Annual Rural Health Conference, which is coming up this spring.
And they've begun to start publishing quality research posters, which is so exciting to see where they're really formally looking at their process improvement and getting it down in a scientific way so we can really share that on the biggest stage possible and get it published.
Those are big deals and things that, you know, we're so happy to be able to help rural hospitals have a voice on a national stage to share the great things they're doing to help cardiac and stroke patients in their communities.
Michelle Rathman: Yeah, absolutely. And I think about all of the phases of this. You know, the prevention piece is so important. That's not particularly, I mean, you, your website has so many great so much great information about the prevention factors. And I think one of the things that is attractive for me with this program is that you do provide the hospitals you're working with, with abundant education for their patient populations.
It's not just education for the clinical teams. It's to understand because you know, Mindy, you have heard this before in so many rural places, aside from the maybe the topography or the tourism that they have, what we know for a fact is that we have the highest rates of, of heart disease and hypertension and things of that nature.
So if we're gonna tackle these things, not only do we have to have the treatment for it, but we really do have to take a look at those steps that we can, everything we can do to be in a preventative mode.
Mindy Cook: Absolutely. And you know, you mentioned hypertension, and we have a great, great programs for population health management, which, you know, on the ambulatory care side, really knowing how many of your patients you're following in your clinic are being treated to goal in hypertension, being treated, you know with a statin for cholesterol. And having their diabetes managed to the best of, of the available treatments that are out there for cardiovascular patients with diabetes.
Michelle Rathman: Yes.
Mindy Cook: So we have some three of those kind of great outpatient or ambulatory care programs that can help with assessing whether your population in your clinic on the ambulatory care side is, is meeting those things.
And we do provide a lot of materials related to, you know, how to encourage health in communities. And we give those toolkits out to every hospital that joins the Rural Accelerator Program, and all of our resources are available on our websites.
We kind of kit that up for our rural hospitals 'cause it can be overwhelming to look through all the materials we have. So, we have a, kind of a curated list of materials that we'd recommend at kind of the basis of all of our materials that are out there.
If you're putting together a public health fair or you want more materials in your, in your lobbies or you're having activity that you're planning where you can engage with the community and really promote healthy behaviors.
Michelle Rathman: Yeah, and we're gonna make sure that those links are on theruralimpact.com website because they're really helpful. And you know, why reinvent the wheel? The material is done by the experts. It's, it's ready to, to be able to use.
And I'll tell you, in my experience in working with rural hospitals, I love when somebody from the hospital team goes to the grade school, the middle school and the high school, and starts to talk about heart health, cardiovascular health at a very young age. Because we are seeing tragically so, we are seeing the age of those who are at the beginning stages of heart disease, they're dropping.
And that is a number going in the wrong direction.
So, we said you had about a hundred slots left for this program, and so Mindy, tell our listeners how they can get involved. Where should they go? Again, we'll put the [00:18:00] resources on on our website, but let 'em hear it directly from you, the source.
Mindy Cook: Yes, so we have a great webpage where you can click on a link directly to set up a meeting with one of my team members and we will reach back out to you right away to set up a time to connect. The website is heart.org/ruralaccelerator. And I know Michelle will provide that to you, but
Michelle Rathman: That's right.
Mindy Cook: an easy button on the site.
You'll find, you know, a summary of all the program benefits. As I mentioned, it is available at no cost for three years for anyone that wants to enroll, and we are committed to helping you attain success in your cardiovascular stroke care and helping you share that uh, with your community that you're equipped and working with us, and we'd love to help.
So please do reach out to myself or one of our team members. Go to our website, again, heart.org/ruralaccelerator, and set up the time to connect with us. We'd love to hear from you.
Michelle Rathman: Yeah. We are so excited that you, I mean, really excited to be a part of this this project, if you will, to make sure that we can help amplify it.
And listen, if you have a story, we wanna hear from you. It's really important, you know, there's a lot of very not so pleasant news, but when we can report on, on things and, and collaborations that really work and that have made a difference, that have made an impact in your community, and I'll say this is a big impact that you can make when you can see it working, not just for one patient, but for an entire community to kind of turn their cardiovascular health and, and minimize their risk because there's been a collective effort.
So Mindy Cook, so happy to have you here today. We appreciate it and we're gonna keep pushing 'cause we know we need a hundred hospitals.
Mindy Cook: A hundred more. You can do it.
Michelle Rathman: 100 more. We're gonna get there. Okay.
Thank you so much to Mindy Cook the American Heart Association. We'll be right back with more on The Rural Impact.
Interview with Kallie Provost
Michelle Rathman: Kelly Provost, I am so glad that you could join us today for this discussion. A really important discussion on The Rural Impact that we're having, which is about rural hospitals being able to provide the highest level quality care for cardiovascular patients in need of care. So welcome to the podcast.
We're glad you could be here.
Kallie Provost: Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here.
Michelle Rathman: So for our listeners, you know, we talk so much about critical access in rural hospitals. Give us a lay of your land, where about your facility, where you're located, and a little bit about the population that you serve.
Kallie Provost: Absolutely. So, I come from Cox Monett Hospital. We are a hospital within the system, Cox Health. We are a critical access hospital in southwest Missouri. We service, our primary service area is gonna be Barry and Lawrence County. Um, that's about 75,000 people that we, that we care for, and then we also service a 30 to 40 mile radius around.
So that's, that's kind of the population that we're serving.
Michelle Rathman: And you know, it's not just a, a narrative that we hear so much about where there's higher incidence of chronic disease,hypertension, and so forth. Can you provide us with kind of a, a snapshot of what that looks like in that 75,000 catchment area that you have?
What is the incidence of cardiovascular disease? What's that look like?
Kallie Provost: Yeah, absolutely. So, we have an increased risk of, or an increased incidence of cardiovascular disease in rural southwest Missouri. Our patient demographic is largely made up of Caucasian, Hispanic, and Asian ethnicities. Within that population, it's a sizable portion, is an older demographic, so 55 and older.
And the majority are, is acting as part of farming communities of factory workers. So, geography and lifestyle really play a part as barriers in, in their health. So, Cox Monett has cared for 50 STEMI patients since 2021. And all of those patients that we cared for either received fibrinolytic or primary PCI.
And then in 2024 alone for our inpatient setting, we cared for 40 congestive heart failure patients. So quite the incidence of cardiovascular disease in our area.
Michelle Rathman: And, you know, as it, as I would imagine, you know, where people have to travel for specialty care. I mean it's so important. In particular, I think about being able to have stroke care in your ER.
Kallie Provost: Yeah.
Michelle Rathman: You know, we are talking about our, our great partners at the American Heart Association and,what they're able to do to provide that guidance training with, you know, tools and resources.
So talk to us about the stroke care that's available in your ER and why that is so important.
Kallie Provost: Yeah, absolutely. So, it's deemed a time critical diagnosis, obviously due to the critical nature of morbidity and mortality that's associated with CVAs. The phrase time is brain is, is obviously a cliche that we all hear, but it's, it's a true one. These patients are losing millions of neurons every minute that they, they suffer an untreated stroke.
So the treatment options are also on the clock and having being able to care for these patients in a timely fashion with quality care, evidence-based practice, that's crucial for us, especially being in a critical access hospital because Cox Monett is a level three stroke center, so we're really doing the, the drip and ship.
So we're trying to get them out as fast as possible to get that higher level of care.
Michelle Rathman: And if, and if you can't do that, then what? You know, and that's why it’s so why it's so important to have these, these interventions. And so let's talk about the, the get with the guidelines program and with that, the Rural Health Outcomes Accelerator because we really wanna encourage, you know, through our conversation, we know that the American Heart Association is providing opportunities for hundreds of hospitals to be able to take advantage of these programs.
Why are these two programs, if you will, the, the 'Get with the Guidelines' program and then the initiative to get more cause to sign up? Why do you think it's so important for other healthcare leaders out there to take advantage of these opportunities and they really are opportunities.
Kallie Provost: And I can say from Cox Monett's point of view, it was so important for us to be a part of both of those initiatives and programs because it, it assists in closing the gap in rural healthcare outcomes. The programs ensure access to evidence-based practice and guidelines at no cost. Patients in a rural setting are already at increased for, for CVD, morbidity, mortality, stroke. Utilizing Get with the Guidelines, we're ensuring our patients receive the most up-to-date standards of care.
By adopting the program tools in support of the program, we've seen improving patient outcomes by standardizing the care and having the ability to analyze the data placed into the platform. And then we utilize it as process improvement projects. So, we're always trying to get to get better and these programs really enhance that.
Michelle Rathman: Yeah. You know in all the circles that I travel, working in rural health, I mean, I talk to so many people in the clinical setting and just how imperative these kinds of tools are because everyone who delivers care wants to deliver the best care possible
Kallie Provost: absolutely.
Michelle Rathman: and it requires education and tools and support. Let's talk a little bit about the adoption of the program. I
Kallie Provost: Mm-hmm.
Michelle Rathman: you know, we hear a lot the word capacity and the
Kallie Provost: yes.
Michelle Rathman: a small teams, I would imagine, Kallie, you wear many hats.
Kallie Provost: Yes. Yes.
Michelle Rathman: You do many, many things within your organization. Can you talk about the process of adopting the program
Kallie Provost: Mm-hmm.
Michelle Rathman: and, you know, just kind of what's required in terms of the capacity and to get everyone on the team onboard?
Because this is a team
Kallie Provost: Yeah.
Michelle Rathman: effort. This is not just one person being in the know. This is an entire clinical team that is then implementing said guidelines and so forth.
Kallie Provost: Absolutely. So, we've been a part of Get with the Guidelines since 2016, so before I came into my role as their stroke and STEMI coordinator. And we've been utilizing that across, across the board. So we've used it for stroke, we've used it for CAD and CHF, and then we also use resuscitation now as well.
I am their primary go-to person for stroke, CAD and CHF on our campus. But like you said, it is a team effort. I am constantly educating leaders in every department, physicians, our education department. That way we can get these guidelines and these evidence-based practices out to as many of our staff as possible.
And that way they know like what our benchmark goals are, why are we doing what we're doing? Because a lot of the time they don't really understand the why, and I think that's imperative to understand the care that we're providing.
Michelle Rathman: That's a great point. And you said you've had, you know, really remarkable outcomes in some areas. Can you, can you share a little bit about what that looks like? So, we say better health outcomes as kind of a, you know, abstract term.
Kallie Provost: Right. Yeah,
Michelle Rathman: What does that like when it comes to just the, in what you're able to do for patients and what's the impact on hospital and your community?
Kallie Provost: yeah. Absolutely. So when we. We've been a part of CAD, like I said, for years, and we've been a STEMI center for years. We were really noticing with Get with the Guidelines data that we were always falling out with primary PCI due to geographical barriers.
Michelle Rathman: Explain what, for our lay listeners, explain to us what that means.
Kallie Provost: So we are about 55 minutes from a higher level of care hospital, so anywhere that can do like a primary PCI.
So in order for us to get EMS here as quickly as possible, we obviously use air care more often than not. Which of course that shaves off a little bit of time, but that clock starts as soon as they come in complaining of chest pain, right? So, we really were able to analyze the data, kind of recognize that geography was our number one barrier in care for these patients, and we weren't having the best outcomes because, just like time is brain, time is muscle, right.
So we worked with cardiology. We really looked at the data and we were able to, we were able to hone in on our process of giving STEMI care by recognizing that we can give fibrinolytics more often than we were. So, we really did a push for any patient that was a candidate that didn't have contraindications to connected place. That was gonna be the primary pathway that we wanted to treat STEMI patients.
And since then, we are having, I mean, we had an administration of t and k from, from door to administration of 10 minutes. And we do that often with these patients, and then we, we ship them out as quickly as possible. By the time we get them to Cox South, which is our sister hospital we ship them and get them there. They're already much more stable.
They're not, they're having delayed PCI at that point. So, we are really having better outcomes, we're having less damage, and they're able to come back home to their communities sooner. And then they can do their cardiac rehab here with us instead of having to have extended times in the metropolitan area.
Michelle Rathman: And I'm sure they're so grateful for the care that you're able to provide, you know, during a crisis and then after they're stabilized. It's remarkable.
What would you say to those who are listening who have yet to take advantage of the opportunity to join in and partner with this program? And then I wonder if you're able to provide, you know, for, be kind of a cheerleader for others, you know, who are maybe on the fence about what it might take to implement it.
Because what would be the, what would be the reason not to join?
Kallie Provost: Right. Yeah. I would absolutely say take, take that initiative to be a part of these programs now. Do it sooner rather than later. It's always intimidating to learn a new platform and start a new process, but I can tell you even as a newer time critical diagnosis coordinator, this platform was so easy for me to pick up and I can say that the support that I received from the Get with the Guidelines Coordinators was invaluable to me.
They offered so many different seminars just for like that onboarding training of understanding the platform and the data analysis and how to, how to really abstract to the best of my ability. And then they're constantly in contact with me.
They're, they're updating me on the new guidelines, and they're always available whenever I have questions or maybe I'm hung up at a certain point in my data. So, so for me, I'm definitely a newer user and I can say that anybody and everybody can utilize this and it, it really is the best option for our patients.
Michelle Rathman: And I would imagine it makes for some really great, you know, community engagement to be able to talk about it and build confidence in your facility
That you can, you know, 'cause so we just, you know, they, we, you hear a drip and ship and you think, well, because they just can't take care of it.
When in reality
Kallie Provost: Right.
Michelle Rathman: You're doing exactly what needs to be done. You are, you are making sure that patients are stabilized
Kallie Provost: Yeah,
Michelle Rathman: in really good shape before they, before they are taken elsewhere for that higher level of care in a facility that's appropriate for that level of care.
Kallie Provost: Absolutely. We are giving that time critical treatment to the best of our ability and then giving them that, that transfer just for that extra step after stability. And it really has even helped us, I think that a lot of CAH hospitals, would agree with that there's a barrier with EMS at times. A lot of us are working with very limited EMS resources.
Working with these programs has even helped us forge relationships with our county EMS, because I'm even working with their crews on their data and I'm presenting it to them bi-annually as education. And so now they, they have goals. They understand why it matters, what they're doing out in the field too.
Michelle Rathman: I am so glad that you brought that up, Kallie, because everywhere, everywhere you look across the United States of America and rural communities. You know, when you make that call to 9-1-1, I mean, there are places where they're very stretched for staffing in their EMS
Kallie Provost: Mm-hmm. Absolutely.
Michelle Rathman: And so all the more reason to make sure that they are prepared because they're your partners in care.
That's
Kallie Provost: Yeah.
Michelle Rathman: really great point that they can take advantage of it too, that
Kallie Provost: Mm-hmm.
Michelle Rathman: It's not just, again, it's a, a community of caregivers working together to improve cardiovascular health outcomes in your community. I am so appreciative for your time. It, it is very clear to me how energized you are and how committed you are to this program and to the patients that you serve.
Kallie Provost: Thank you so much.
Michelle Rathman: And to the team you are educating. We're, we're really appreciative for your time, Kallie. And listen, stay in touch with us. We wanna hear, you know, good stories. We
Kallie Provost: Absolutely.
Michelle Rathman: stories right now. Could we not?
Kallie Provost: Absolutely, yes. I am very passionate about the care we provide here, so we just wanna be the best for those who need us.
Michelle Rathman: Excellent. Thank you so much.
Kallie Provost: Thank you.
Michelle Rathman: We'll be right back.
Michelle Rathman: Thank you again to Mindy Cook and Kallie Provost for their time and insights. You know, you're gonna be able to find information about how you get your hospital enrolled in the American Heart Association Rural Health Outcomes Accelerator Program, which again closes on June 30th. So check your watch.
There's still time to do it. If you are a rural hospital leader or a clinician working in that space, just visit theruralimpact.com website. And we'll make sure that we link you up to all of the places you need to go to make sure that you are signed up for this program before the window closes.
While you're on the Rural Impact website, we invite you to become a subscriber if you have not done so already, because when you do, you'll receive our post show notes, recaps of our episodes, as well as teasers and information about what we've got coming up next.
And speaking about what's coming up next. We have quite the episode in the works for you. Now. I can't say too much about it just yet, but I can promise you that we are going deep into policy, everything from the farm bill to immigration, tariffs, the plight of the Americans us, US Post Office, and so much more. And our slate of guests are gonna make sure that we don't leave one single stone left unturned that I can promise you.
So stay tuned for a new episode. In the meantime, if you are an organization that is looking to expand your rural reach, like the American Heart Association, we invite you to email us at [email protected]. We would love to hear from you and learn how we can partner with you and expand your rural reach and share the impact of your work in rural America.
With that said, I just wanna give a quick thanks to Brea Corsaro and Sarah Staub for all their hard work behind the scenes. Again, I thank you for joining us until the next time, I invite you to take the best care of yourself as well as those around you, and we will see you again on a new episode [00:02:00] of The Rural Impact.
