Creating a Model for Healthcare in Rural America - Dr. Mike Waldrum, Dean of the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University and CEO of ECU Health

Twenty years ago, health outcomes in Eastern North Carolina lagged behind state averages but those deficits have largely been erased, and Dr. Mike Waldrum, Dean of the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University, thinks he knows why. “We’ve done it primarily with a community-based focus and taking students only from North Carolina that we know have a propensity to want to practice medicine in the environments that we're here to serve. That's kind of our sauce,” he tells host Shiv Gaglani. Building on that approach, the university started a rural residency program in recent years, and out of four graduates in its first cohort, two have agreed to stay in the communities in which they trained. And while that kind of incremental progress on the ground level is important, Dr. Waldrum knows change is needed at the system level as well. Some things ECU Health can do on its own, such as implementing a unified electronic medical record across all of its care sites that allows it to model where health needs are and intervene early. But what he sees as the necessary restructuring of how the healthcare system is organized and financed will take a group effort. “We need Medicare, Medicaid, the insurance industry and others as partners in how we transform the system.” Tune in for a thoughtful look at the challenges of improving healthcare in rural communities, and the special role academic “safety-net” health systems play in that effort. 

Mentioned in this episode: https://medicine.ecu.edu/

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