Column: A better vision for rural health care

As a rural primary care physician in Hawaii, I do not need a report or ranking to tell me the system is under strain. I see it in the patients who wait months for appointments, in clinics that quietly close, and in the growing number of communities where access to care depends on whether someone can afford to travel to another island. Hawaii is often ranked as having one of the nation’s best health care systems, but those rankings rely on surveys and scoring methods that overlook harder measures like physician supply, clinic closures, wait times and maternal outcomes. On the ground, the reality looks very different.

See the original article at: Honolulu Star-Advertiser