A new federal designation would allow struggling hospitals to end inpatient services, but some have concerns about how that could affect rural health care.

Ay junjun eb’ nik yune chonab’ a snanhal Oeste wan sk’ib’eb’ yu’uj jeb’ tz’at ja Norte, yu’uj tz’och jeb’ nik tz’yal junxhok ti’ehal chuk yalxi. Jeb’ yatutal ant’won anma yet’ eb tziln ati jeb’ anma yawlal tzyil jeb’ set to nik vacuna COVID sk’och ja junjun chonhab’.

In a livestreamed conversation, Side Effects Public Media discussed how leaders in a small Indiana town worked to break language barriers and provide COVID-19 vaccines to the town’s immigrant population, including the growing number of Indigenous Mayan people from Guatemala.

Algunas ciudades pequeñas del Medio Oeste están creciendo gracias a la afluencia de inmigrantes, entre los que se encuentran algunos que hablan idiomas inusuales. Los hospitales y los líderes comunitarios han tenido que adaptarse para que las vacunas contra la COVID sean accesibles a esas comunidades.

Some small towns in the Midwest are growing due to an influx of immigrants, which includes some who speak rare languages. Hospitals and community leaders have had to adapt to make COVID vaccines accessible to those communities.

The Lincoln Scholars program at Southern Illinois University’s School of Medicine aims to train up-and-coming physicians to work in rural areas by providing them with rural clinical experience right off the bat.

Typically an ambulance arrives to find a person in mid-crisis and requiring immediate care. But a new approach — called community paramedicine — aims to prevent emergencies in the first place.

Transferring critically ill patients is becoming increasingly difficult, according to hospital leaders, government officials and industry advocates. Patients are spending hours — or sometimes days — in rural hospital emergency rooms waiting for an ambulance.

The pandemic has affected the mental health of Iowa's children, and some are still concerned that two years after the creation of the children's mental health system, services are still falling short.

A recent pop-up COVID-19 vaccine clinic helped Illinois farmers have easy access to getting the shot.