Year: 2017

EXCERPT: “Obtaining surgical care can be a troublesome task for patients in rural areas. Not only is quality care often hours away by car, but rural hospitals commonly face financial difficulties in recruiting and keeping surgeons on staff. However, a research team from Texas Tech University Health Sciences, Odessa, Tex., has developed a novel methodology ...

EXCERPT: “Two top priorities under the Trump administration —an infrastructure spending package and tax reform — are controversial topics that, if they move through a deeply divided Congress, stand to directly impact the wireless industry. But a panel of administration officials and industry lobbyists said Wednesday that although the broad legislation could potentially split Congress, the provisions relating ...

EXCERPT: “The infant mortality rate is more than 25% higher in rural counties compared to large urban counties. The good news is that infant mortality is down in all counties from 2007 to 2015. But the fact remains that it is 25% riskier to be born in a rural county (6.8 infant deaths per 1,000 ...

This week Steve Wenzel joins us to talk about the importance of agriculture in Minnesota and about his concern that, in an attempt to give lakeshore property owners property tax relief, that that tax burden doesn’t get shifted onto agriculture and small business. Steve is a professor of political science at Central Lakes College in ...

EXCERPT: “Large manufacturing firms in rural America are at least as likely as similar urban firms to use innovative methods that can contribute to job creation and increased earnings, a new report says. Though preliminary, the study may indicate that there are exceptions to the oft-repeated rule that economic innovation is the nearly exclusive purview ...

EXCERPT: “The cost of building out broadband infrastructure is a significant barrier. By some estimates, it can cost as much as $30,000 a mile to run fiber optic cable, meaning it could take many decades to recoup installation costs for broadband internet. This problem is compounded if subscriptions are expensive and adoption is spotty in sparsely ...

EXCERPT: “Jessica Rabe, co-founder of DataTrek Research, analyzed data from Google Trends, a tracker of what people all over the world are searching for. That tool offers what Rabe calls ‘a novel take on a two-speed job market.’ The two speeds, of course, are urban and rural. The most search interest in ‘job openings’ comes from southern or ...

EXCERPT: “If hospitals want to recruit more doctors in rural areas, they need help. At the same time, medical care providers need more flexibility in billing and reimbursement from the government to solve some of the issues patients commonly run into when getting the care they need. That’s the message lawmakers heard during a talk Tuesday ...

In the final installment of our conversation with Scott Cutcher, Chief Public Defender for the Fifth Judicial District, we talk about the case load for public defenders and how those needs are met.