For all of the awesome hi-tech developments in health nowadays – from wireless heart monitors that can be checked by docs across the country to real-time health news streaming to your iPhone – the simple fact remains that we are sitting atop a struggling health care system. We rely on this system to save lives, deliver babies, clear sinuses, administer vaccinations and everything in between, yet it remains a plagued operation, especially fragile in tough economic times.
In North Dakota, the state of health and health care varies widely, according to a new report issued by the Center for Rural Health at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences and commissioned by Dakota Medical Foundation. The environmental scan report is the first of its kind in the state, and a rarity across the country, to comprehensively assess the health and health care of North Dakotans.
The message that emerges from the environmental scan is that the best of North Dakota—a cooperative and collaborative spirit, a can-do attitude, concern for neighbors, and clear recognition of the link between North Dakotans’ health and the economic health of their communities—can be brought to bear directly on transforming the state of health and health care.
