Why Is Healthcare Innovation So Hard in Rural America?

Rural critical-access hospitals are struggling, and they're looking at innovative ideas like telehealth and AI to keep the doors open. But what works in the big city won't necessarily work in a small community.And that's what makes innovation such a hard sell in rural America.For small hospitals like Sparta, new technology offers the promise of improving care, but it can also rob the organization of its identity—a valuable commodity in rural communities where the hospital is often the biggest employer and the doctor is a neighbor. Hospital leaders looking to keep their hospital afloat have to understand that the promise of innovation doesn't apply equally to every organization.