Essentia celebrates National Rural Health Day

Whether Dr. Sreejith Gopi is providing care for a newborn baby or his 98-year-old patient who still walks to appointments at the Essentia Health-Ada Clinic, there is a common tie that binds.

"Having quality access to health care providers on a regular basis, including for acute injuries and illnesses, I think it's just a basic human right," says Dr. Gopi, an Essentia family medicine physician in the small northwest Minnesota town of Ada, where the nearest metropolitan area, Fargo-Moorhead, is 45 miles to the south. "I'm glad that we can provide that support to the community we serve and the surrounding communities."

The philosophy is straightforward: A person’s location shouldn’t impact their ability to receive timely and expert care.

At Essentia Health, we embrace that belief as a guiding principle. With a geographic service area that is about 84% rural, we work hard every day to safeguard the health and well-being of all our patients, regardless of where they live.

Today — Thursday, Nov. 21 — we join others in recognizing and celebrating National Rural Health Day.

Did you know that nearly 61 million people in the U.S., or 19.7% of the population, and 86% of the country’s land area, are considered rural? And yet rural communities face a disproportionate shortage of qualified health care providers, with 71% of primary care Health Professional Shortage Areas located in rural regions.

Indeed, the challenges of providing care in small towns are many and complex. For example:

• Rural populations tend to be older, with more pronounced health needs and a higher likelihood of chronic disease. These patients require more frequent care to manage their health and, in rural areas, there are fewer providers.
• Rural residents are more likely to have government health insurance, such as Medicare and Medicaid. On average, these programs reimburse far less than the cost of care, leaving a financial shortfall for health systems.
• Workforce shortages are more pronounced in rural areas.

Hitting close to home

Dr. Samantha Leonard, a general surgeon at Essentia Health-Moose Lake, witnessed the stress that accompanies a lack of health care access while growing up in a small town in Newfoundland, Canada. She watched as her grandmother “would have to travel for hours” to some of her appointments. The experience compelled Dr. Leonard to provide the kind of care in a rural region that would have benefited her grandma.

“I was very motivated early on in my medical training to make sure I prepared myself with as many skills as possible so that I could go into a more rural community setting and be able to bring that specialist care to patients,” she said.

Finding solutions

Those challenges require creativity and collaboration, a commitment to brainstorm solutions that will preserve high-quality health care for all of us. Essentia is constantly looking for ways to strengthen rural health care for the communities we serve in Minnesota, North Dakota and Wisconsin.

Our community paramedics program brings care right into the homes of high-risk patients. By bringing care directly to our patients and helping them manage their chronic conditions, we are better able to prevent health concerns from deteriorating.

Our OB fellowship is the only one of its kind in Minnesota and prepares family medicine physicians offering obstetrics care to practice specifically in rural areas.

Essentia is passionate about offering training opportunities to aspiring medical professionals. In our most recent fiscal year — from July 1, 2023, through June 30, 2024 — we offered 480,000 hours of clinical training to more than 2,700 students.

We manage the Duluth Family Medicine Residency Program, which has prepared more than 400 physicians to practice in small towns since its inception in 1975.

The University of Minnesota’s General Surgery Rural Track at Essentia Health develops general surgeons for rural areas.

The Essentia Institute of Rural Health is a leader in rural health care innovation by combining educational experiences and research activities.

Essentia has cultivated more than 20 academic practice partnerships to address workforce shortages. These partnerships create future health care workers who have been exposed to Essentia and thus are more likely to work here and in the communities we serve.

In their own words

We asked some of our rural providers at Essentia why they chose to practice medicine in a small town. Here’s what they had to say:

“I’m from a rural community — I’m originally from India; I’m not a big-city person. Working in a rural community I think there’s a sense of belonging. And I like the people; the people are really very appreciative of the care they receive.” — Dr. Gopi

WATCH: Hear more from our colleagues about providing rural health care

“I think it’s a privilege to practice in a rural community, the connectedness you feel with friends, family, being able to be involved with community activities in addition to being a physician in the community. To me, I say it’s a dream job practicing where I am. I grew up in Ashland, so I came back to practice in my hometown.” — Dr. Kim Ogle, Essentia Health-Ashland Clinic

“It just gives you that opportunity to deliver high-level care, specialized or more personalized treatments to patients without leaving their communities, without leaving the area they’ve known for many, many years. It’s good for everybody when people can get their care closer to home.” — Dr. Guillermo Marroquin Galvez, Essentia Health St. Mary’s-Detroit Lakes Clinic

“I also really enjoy taking care of multiple members of families. When I see one patient come in, they’ll come in with their family member, whom I also have just treated, and you get to develop this relationship with the entire family, regardless of whose office visit it is. You get to become part of that family because you’ve taken care of so many members of it, and that is truly special to a rural setting.” — Dr. Leonard

“You can really look out for your patients and the members of your community.” — Dr. Marroquin Galvez

“I have a passion for breast cancer and we have data that says that patients that live in rural communities get diagnosed later. Some have up to three times the length of travel to receive services like radiation therapy, and it can actually impact how patients make decisions about their cancer care. The more we can provide locally, the better for the patient in so many ways.” — Dr. Leonard, alluding to the full-spectrum breast health care she and her team offer at Essentia Health-Moose Lake