Funding Rural | Episode #18 | Season 2: Robert Duehmig “Building Rural Healthcare”
Across vast stretches of rural America and particularly in the West, emergency care—or even basic routine healthcare—can be hard to come by. People drive hours for eye exams, to give birth, have their teeth cleaned, or get therapy. Robert Duehmig, director for the Oregon Office of Rural Health, works towards solutions that fit rural and remote communities in Oregon. He discusses what’s working, what needs work, and how philanthropy can support healthcare in these communities.
“The future of health care is in our K-12 system, because those kids are the ones that are growing up in these communities, and they’re the ones that will come back.” -Robert Duehmig
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https://youtu.be/ztbbylA9P0Q
More about Robert Duehmig
Robert Duehmig has over 25 years of experience working in education and health policy at the state and national level. He has worked as an advisor with the US-UK Fulbright Commission, congressional field staff, Political Director for the AFT-Oregon and Associate Director of Government Relations for Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU). As ORH Director, he oversees an office focused on providing expert, evidence-based support, education programs and technical assistance for rural and remote Oregon health facilities and community organizations. Areas of support include workforce, EMS, population health, compliance and data. Robert currently serves on the NRHA Government Relations Committee and NRHA Policy Congress and is past President of NOSORH (National Organization of State Offices of Rural Health). He has also served on the board of director of Clastop Community College.
“The reality is, women’s health care is health care. And we have to be able to talk about what all the needs are, and we need to make sure that women are getting the access to that care that they need.” –Robert Duehmig
Discussion Questions
- As Bob mentions, the K-12 system is a pathway to health in rural communities. It’s not just about inspiring young people to seek good health for themselves, but also to see themselves as the future EMTs, counselors, nurses, or doctors in their communities someday. What are ways that philanthropy can support young people having access to opportunities to see themselves in all parts of the healthcare system?
- The stigmas around mental and behavioral heathcare are receding in many areas, but in a small town, there can still be heightened resistance to these important healthcare services. Telehealth and services like AgriStress Healthline can help aid those in need, but what other ways can funders help normalize mental and behavioral healthcare
- Finding partners in the space: If you aren’t available to be on location in rural service areas, what are ways that key partners can act as intermediaries to inform the work and allow philanthropic organizations to get started?
- Can philanthropy play a role in helping older folks stay at home as long as possible? Or supporting assisted living facilities or in-home care? If your organization has successful support of seniors and programs that are working, other funders want to hear about it.
Resources
- ORH Staff – Oregon Office of Rural Health
- Forum on Aging in Rural Oregon Brings Together Innovative Ideas and Programs
- A Career in Rural Healthcare. Is it for me?
- Small town, big emergencies | Feature Stories | theotheroregon.com
- One Key Question®: First Things First in Reproductive Health – PubMed
- ONE KEY QUESTION® Healthy Families
“If I come from a small town, and I understand what it’s like to live there, and I see and appreciate what it means to come back and care for my town and the people in my town—that’s that’s where our future pipeline is at, and that’s where we do not invest enough money.” –Robert Duehmig
Transcript: Episode #18 | Season 2: Robert Duehmig “Building Rural Healthcare”
Erin Borla 0:00
You’re listening to Funding Rural. I’m Erin Borla with the Sisters, Oregon based Roundhouse Foundation. There are so many different ways that philanthropy can help improve the health of rural communities across vast stretches of rural America and particularly in the West. Emergency care or even basic routine health care can be very hard to come by. People drive hours for eye exams, to give birth, to have their teeth cleaned or get therapy. Robert Duehmig thinks about these challenges and works towards solutions that fit rural communities in Oregon that he serves. He’s the director for the Oregon Office of Rural Health. It’s a program that’s housed with the Oregon Health Sciences University, and it’s sort of a hybrid between state and federal funding and philanthropic support. Here at The Roundhouse Foundation, we’ve come alongside the work his team oversees and seen the results on the ground. I was eager to have Bob on the show to really dig into healthcare and what it looks like in rural spaces, what’s working, what needs work, and how philanthropy can help. I started out by asking him to lay out the health challenges that are really specific to rural and remote communities.
Robert Duehmig 1:14
Well, there are some things that are fairly consistent about rural across the country. The populations are older, they tend to be lower on the income levels and tend to be a little sicker on sort of that whole rating of where people are in their on their health status. And that comes from a variety of reasons. You cannot take health care and separate it from economic development. You can’t separate it from education and as our rural communities have changed over the years, as there’s been an industrialization of our agriculture, as there’s been changes in the over economic layout of a lot of our rural states, a lot of people have left those communities because the jobs have left so your population begins to age, you lose your tax your tax base. So there’s a limited amount of money that some of our rural communities can invest in some of the things that they need, you know, to make it in the future, and that tends to create a little bit of a spiral. So we have older communities, and what we then do is focus on health care challenges and needs for older people, which is the right thing to do, but sometimes at the expense of the younger people that are still in our communities, right? So you see us struggling with maternal health care in rural communities. You see us struggling offering the pediatric care and some of those other pieces that we need in rural areas to keep those families in our rural communities as well. And to show that if there is a business that wants to move into a rural area, or somebody wants to expand, they can attract the workforce because there are sort of that comprehensive amount of healthcare services that they need for those individuals, I think another piece that hits rural America across the across the country, and impacts health care is distance. So we have a lot of miles between towns in our rural communities. So if you have a community where there is no maternal care and you are pregnant, you’re going to go a long way before you can deliver a baby. If you have no access to any sort of specialty care, if you have cancer, if you need some kind of chemo, if you need kidney dialysis, you’re going to travel a great distance for those services. And then talk about oral health care, which is a whole nother piece there, trying to keep dentists in those rural communities, and how far some of these folks have to go, and therefore kids don’t get the care that they need, and then we don’t get the services as regularly to our senior populations that we need as well. But I think there are so many groups that are interested in trying to figure out what that holistic approach is. That means oral health, that means mental health, that means behavioral health, that means physical health. All of those need to come together, because I could, I could help you giving a prescription or a treatment for something physical, but if part of that as a result of a mental or behavioral health challenge that you’re having, and we don’t address that, then we’re really not getting to the to the root that we need to to make you a healthier person.
Erin Borla 4:28
Yeah, well, and I think that’s a really good point, right? And this show is primarily about how philanthropy can better serve rural spaces, but we look at that as you know, oftentimes we hear, well, that one year grant or that smaller grant isn’t necessarily going to help us get to the root cause of this problem. And so we’re as we look at health care as sort of that same concept, right? We can’t just look at it in one way. We have to look at all these other pieces and how they how they feed together to really fix this holistic solution.
Robert Duehmig 4:59
Absolutely. And, you know, I think philanthropy does play a big role. And I will toot your horn, because I think you guys have done a fabulous job in helping our office and stepping in and being able to help us do some of the things that we’re doing, both in EMS and in behavioral health and in those pieces, which is, which is huge, because everybody can only do so much, and I but I also caution people that philanthropy is not the solution to all of our challenges, either. It’s if I go to you and ask you for support, I need to have a plan that says this is where we’re at. This is why I need your support, and this is where we’re going, so that we cannot get to the end of a grant and go, Okay, we’re done. Bye. We’ll see you next time I can get a grant, because that doesn’t get us anywhere either. And to your point, I really think in addressing the issues we I think there’s not enough conversation with K-12. We need to look at what school-based health centers can do for our rural communities and keeping our kids healthy, we need to look at our K-12 system, I would say, across the state, even in the cities, but particularly in rural and figure out what opportunities are we offering our kids? The reality is that the future of health care is in our K-12 system, because those kids are the ones that are growing up in these communities, and they’re the ones that will come back if I get raised in a city, and then I go to a place like OHSU, and I go on one of their rural tracks as part of my training, it’s like, wow, this is really interesting, that part of the state is really gorgeous, but I’m not going there. That’s not where I’m from. I’m a city kid. I’m a suburb kid, whatever it might be. But if I come from a small town, and I understand what it’s like to live there, and I see and appreciate what it means to come back and care for my my town and the people in my town. That’s that’s where our future pipeline is at, and that’s where we do not invest enough money, and then we don’t get our kids excited about science. And I’m not saying surgery. Let’s show a kid how he cut something up, but I’m talking about science in general, and all of the different things that science means. And how do you get a kid to say, I really want to move forward, and this doesn’t make him a doctor, but I think that if we really focus better in how we worked with our kids at that age, we could have, I don’t know, half dozen kids in every graduating class that could be a licensed EMT by the time they graduated, that licensed EMT then is going to be the volunteer we need in our community, but he or she may not stay as an EMT. They may go on to become a paramedic. They may go to nursing school. They may go into a hospital or clinic administration. They may become a phlebotomist. They may be right. They understand what that is, and it becomes a bigger and better anchored pathway for our rural communities. And if you can start them at that point, yes, they’re going to have to go away for some of the training. There’s no doubt about that in most cases, but they’re much more inclined to come back. And so we really want to address everything today. We really want to figure out how we’re going to close these gaps in the next year or two, and we should be focused on that, but we can’t do it while ignoring the pipeline back here, or we’re forever going to be spinning that wheel.
Erin Borla 8:10
Yeah, no, that’s super important points, and there’s a couple things I want to break down in there. But what the the first one, obviously, is this, work with working with K-12. How do we inspire more young people, and you and I have chatted about this multiple times, where it’s like, what, what’s the, what’s the gateway for students to recognize that they they can do this, and part of that comes with that base level of emergency training, right? Being able to have their EMT basic, or their first aid certification or CPR certification, because if they’re out in their rural space on the tractor and somebody falls off, or somebody gets their arm caught in something, they can provide basic care in the field. And there’s some really great programs here in the state of Oregon. Medquest is being one of them in Eastern Oregon, where students get an opportunity to be in the field. And we always talk about it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to create the next surgeon or the next doctor, but you may very well end up with somebody that’s a phlebotomist or an EMT or a volunteer EMT, even that’s like, even that base level of, like, just getting started in that field is such a great opportunity. Are there other examples that you’ve seen that are really successful of young people getting involved?
Robert Duehmig 9:20
Yeah, I think that, you know, calling out, you know, the programs that you did, I think are great. And, you know, we have AHEC programs across the state, and each one of them in their regions do various programming, etc. There is a clinic down in the southern part of the valley that does a great program with their K-12 system, where they’re bringing the kids into the clinics and getting them early on to understand what is going on out there. Because when you talk about the scrubs program in northeast Oregon with the AHEC there, those are high school students, right? And so you’ve got to step back to middle school and even late elementary school to get kids to be interested in going to scrubs in High School. So it’s trying to figure out in each of the communities how you get your health care person, and by that champion, education champion that will come from the clinic or the hospital and say, Hey, this is worth it. I’m going to invest in going to the principal or the science teacher at my middle school or my elementary school and saying, How can we work together? Or, or finding that teacher that really is excited about doing that, and saying, How can we do this? How can we start at this point, at the very least, about doing a tour of your clinic. Or would you come out on a Wednesday afternoon and spend an hour with the students and talk about what you do and show them the different things and and the number of years ago, for National Rural Health Day, Lower Umpqua Hospital in Reedsport invited a bunch of elementary school kids to the hospital, and they did little mini surgeries on teddy bears. They showed them how to help teddy bears feel better and stuff like that. So there are all these different ways you can do that to get them excited, but I it becomes a community thing, and when so, one of the things the Office of Rural Health does is we have a full time recruiter that works with our rural communities to look at the right provider type and help them recruit for the for those positions. And she also works with students at the various institutions like OHSU and Pacific and Comp Northwest, to help those students understand what the whole job process is and how to work on their CVs and things like that. But one of the things that we make sure our sites understand is that it is not you clinic or you hospital that are recruiting this provider. It is you the community. It is the entire community, because that provider has to feel like they are a part of that community when they move there, that providers, partner or spouse, may want a job as well, and may want to figure out how they are going to get involved in it, so that again, the entire community is recruiting that spouse and their children. And so the schools need to be involved in others. So really it is the recruitment of it is the entire community recruiting. So Chamber of Commerce, the schools, you know, any community organizations that might be there. Likewise, they have to think about the K-12 as the first interview process for their next set of providers. They all need to come together as a community and say, what are we doing with our K-12 system to get Erin excited about being an EMT or a nurse or a doctor or a PA or an MP, right? That’s where it starts. So where can the chamber help put some money into making sure that there’s busses and monies to get the kids to the to the to the clinic, or the materials that one or the other needs to help these kids learn and understand. So again, it’s a community commitment. We talk about how rural communities really do a lot of great work and finding solutions and making things happen, but just like elsewhere, I think sometimes they do it in this silo. So we solve this healthcare problem over here, we solve this education problem over here, but how do we do it together? How can we kind of make them more of a single unit as they move on, and we have rural community colleges that should also be part of this conversation?
Erin Borla 13:15
Yeah, I love that you brought up middle schools because I think middle schools get forgotten, and I having middle school students myself, but also like that’s the sort of first age that students get their own autonomy over their own decision making, beyond mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, guardian, they are starting to make those decisions on their own, of who they are and what they what value they bring to the world. So supporting students at that age, by giving them those opportunities to make decisions and really learn about what’s available to them, is such a powerful moment.
Robert Duehmig 13:48
Absolutely, and it’s a time to get them before they get into high school and become cynical high school students, right? Or be you know, or or get that like, oh no, I’m not interested in that, or whatever. I mean, I think middle school is key to so many of the directional challenges that kids have. And I think post COVID, we have to think about that stuff even more, because we had those said, that chunk of years where students weren’t in the classroom and weren’t interacting or seeing the opportunities that they had in the same way. So to me, it’s even more important to double down on middle school and freshmen kind of time frame to make sure we capture those kids back into the system and let them understand that there are so many opportunities out there.
Erin Borla 14:38
You touched a little bit on mental health. Let’s, let’s talk a little bit about what those challenges that we’re seeing in mental and behavioral health in rural and remote places are there? What are things that are working really well? What are some bigger challenges that we’re seeing here at this state or maybe even in a broader context?
Robert Duehmig 14:53
Yeah, I think there’s, there’s several big challenges mental and behavioral health, and those. Terms are often, you know, they’re not necessarily interchangeable, but people tend to to sort of mix them one, one big challenge in both is, of course, the workforce. We are having challenges across the board on any kind of health related workforce, but it took us a little bit longer to get into addressing what those behavioral mental health workforce challenges are, and how we can get people where they need to be. And so I think we’re doing better with that. I think we’re doing that with the incentives that we offer, with the focus on the need for more of those healthcare providers, mental and behavioral healthcare providers, I think because there are many different levels of what mental and behavioral health provider can be you can do it from some certificate programs into associate degree level to bachelor master, PhD and medical right? So really, there’s this gamut, which is helpful because it means that we have some provider types that we can educate people to that we don’t have to wait for you to come back and be a psychiatrist or a PhD psychologist, right? And helping people at an earlier point because of that, and hopefully helping many of them not have to get to the point they need some of that that, you know, other care from PhDs and MTs. So, so I think we’re getting there, but, but workforce is definitely a challenge piece. There another challenge with both of those issues is the stigma that goes around it. We are so much better off today than we were when I was a kid, when it came to talking about mental health, if you if it was a mental health issue, you were really crazy, and nobody wanted to talk about it, right? The reality is, we’ve had lots of people growing up and families struggling with mental health issues and behavioral health issues we didn’t want to talk about. It’s not that they’re new today. It’s just where now one they’re just, I think, out in the open more, but also we’re more willing to talk about it, and that’s a great thing, because now we’re looking at how we can structure a system that will give you the help you need to get through those challenges. So, so I think the fact that we talk about them is very, very important. But in a small town where there’s a provider who does mental and behavioral health care, and they see me go inside that door, people are gonna say, oh, Bob’s going to see the shrink, or Bob’s got mental or behavioral health problems, right? And there’s a stigma that that is very unfortunate, and one that we need to figure out how to address, that we can talk about it in a manner of like, yes, we’re going to make everybody feel better about having a mental health problem, and it’s okay to get it addressed, and we should do that. But in the immediate we also have to figure out how we can do this in a way that people can get their services and not feel that stigma. One of them is integrating those mental and behavioral health services into our clinics, so that when they I need to go see my my mental health provider, I’m going into the clinic, and nobody has any clue as to why I’m going into that, right? So that’s a way of helping people get the care they need without that stigma, and it also helps for if I do go in for a physical health piece and the provider clearly realizes that I’m having some mental health struggles or behavioral struggles, they can refer me right down the hall to the mental and behavioral health specialists that they have on staff that they need. So so I think we’re working a little bit better there in the integration, but we’re also still trying to figure out how to do that in such a way that that the payment models work, so that we’re getting reimbursed for those services, and that we have the workforce in there. Telehealth, I think, has helped quite a bit with mental and behavioral health issues. Younger generations are much better at this tele stuff than I am, certainly as I didn’t grow up on it. I you know, conference calls were a big deal for me. Now we have video everything. So for younger people, I think being able to get mental and behavioral health services through telehealth, and even if the provider is not there in the town has been a huge help. It’s a bit of a struggle, I think, for some older adults who are not used to doing, you know, seeing you on a screen, but not talking about serious things with somebody on a screen. But we’ve even seen some improvement on that as more and more people get get used to that.
Erin Borla 19:19
Well, let’s switch gears a little bit and talk about elder care. I mean, we know the population in rural spaces is aging in some places, many places, and recognizing while we have these tools for young people, what are we doing? I know you all host a forum on aging, particularly with rural healthcare practitioners. What else? What other things are happening? What are things that we need to be looking at? What are ways that outside, outsiders, like us, philanthropic supporters, can come in and and help provide support for some of those, those pieces as well?
Robert Duehmig 19:51
Yeah, it’s, it’s a you know that the elder care is, again, so much more than health care. You can come to my hospital or my clinic and I can can I can give you your blood pressure medicine, or I can, you know, help you with your sprained ankle, or those. Or we can talk about falls, right? So don’t fall at your age. You’re going to hurt yourself, break a hip, whatever it might be. But the reality is that that care for seniors is so much more. It’s making sure that we have people that are working with the seniors in their homes to make sure that they are as safe from falls as possible, that in the summertime, when it’s really hot, that seniors have what they need so they don’t overheat and end up in the hospital, that they are getting the food right that they need. When you’re living alone, you don’t cook the same, and a lot of our seniors living alone don’t have a lot of money so, or the access to getting out to get food. So Meals on Wheels are the kind of programs that really, really help. And I think there’s a group, and I’m going to forget their their full name, in South Morrow County. That is last year, they won an award at the Rural Health Conference for the work they did through COVID and beyond, trying to make sure that there were community members working with their seniors to get the access to those very basic things that they need, like food and regular interactions with humans, because you need that social connection that should the rides they need to get to their to their physicians. And as part of that, many years ago, we started our forum on aging in rural Oregon, because we felt like there were so many more things that needed in groups, that needed to be at the table. And so we do that every year. And then last year, we changed that from the forum on aging to the forum on population health and health equity, because it’s broader than just the aging is so, you know, but, but the aging is all part of that population. How all those needs of our aging population, and how do we bring all those folks together every year to talk about what’s working and what’s not? If you tried something your community and it’s not working, tell us about that so we don’t repeat it. And tell us what you’re doing to fund some of these programs and who you’re partnering with and and what’s working nationwide, as well as in state. And out of that, we know to give, we were giving elder service awards focused, you know, purely on projects in these rural communities to support the aging community members of their community, and then they come back and report on how that’s working and what they’re doing in their community with the money we gave them, and now we’ve expanded that to look at broader population health challenges in the community. And again, we thank your your organization, because you guys came in and supported us on that to help us expand, because you see how much work there is to do. And those are the kind of things for philanthropy can come in and help give those startup dollars to get people up and going, sort of that, that proof of concept, if you will, so that other funders will come in, but also maybe the local government will come in and make it a regular funding item. Maybe the hospital will now step in because they see the positive outcomes that are going on. So we need to continue to make sure that we have systems in our communities that are checking in on our seniors, that are working with our senior centers in each of those communities, who, again, are, are the ears and the eyes for these, these elderlies making sure nobody’s left behind in a case of an emergency. What’s going to happen for our seniors if there’s a wildfire or an earthquake, or, you know, something similar, who’s checking up on them, you know, and who’s making sure they didn’t fall down the stairs and have laid there for a week, yeah. So how do we build that? And I think that’s the purpose of our forum. I think that’s the purpose of the grants that the Roundhouse and the Office of Rural Health are giving to these groups to really begin to put together some plans that we can share with other communities to make sure that they’re staying safe.
Erin Borla 23:44
Well and lastly, I want to touch a little bit on women’s reproductive health and what that looks like in rural spaces, particularly in a state like Oregon, where it looks different than it does in our neighboring state like Idaho. What does that look like for your office?
Robert Duehmig 23:59
Yeah, you know, particularly today, as the climate has changed a little bit on a lot of issues with women’s reproductive health, with access to abortion, with access to birth control, whether it be directly from a provider or through the mail, etc, we’re kind of in a very different point, and we have states where all of that stuff now is very restricted and prohibited, and that is putting pressure on our border clinics and facilities where people are coming across the border to get the care they can’t in their own state, so that put challenges on just general access right? Do we have enough providers in general to be able to handle the care of additional folks coming in. But the other one is the discussion around what it means to offer health care. There was a program around a number of years ago that we worked with called One Key Question, and it went back into you. You come into my my clinic, and you might come in for, you know, just a general checkup, or whatever it is. But the some key questions are, are you pregnant? Are you thinking about getting pregnant? Do you want to get pregnant? Right? Because those are three really important questions. I shouldn’t wait until you are pregnant to ask you, Hey, are you thinking about it if you are here are some things you need to think about. Here’s some things we should talk about if you don’t want to get pregnant. Here’s some things that we should talk about and need to think about as well, so that you don’t at 18,19, 20, find yourself pregnant and not want to be and so you know that we worked a lot with some groups to get that on our basic questionnaires that we need to do when, when women come in and young women come in to to do a checkup. So, you know, that was a good start years ago. I think we are challenged in in in some communities offering those services, because there may not be as much vocal support in a community. I think people are afraid to go ask for some services in their community, so that’s putting them in a bind, where they either leave the community to get their care, or they’re not getting it. And I think that’s a huge problem as well. I think we’re lucky being in Oregon, Oregon has taken a lead in in making sure that care is accessible, and I think it’s important for us to continue to work with all of our facilities, whether they’re clinics or hospitals, to ensure that they’re offering those kind of services that women need. And there are some facilities that are operated by organizations that don’t necessarily agree with the access to all things that are needed for our women’s health care. And I have to really have a community conversation about what that means. What does that mean for women in our community? What does that mean for the young women in our rural communities who aren’t going to stay if they can’t get the kind of care that they need. And we’ll see that, I think, as time goes on in states that have restricted it and people moving out of those states, we’ll see that as more and more providers begin to move out of those states into states that that do allow for the services that women need. So I think it’s it’s a larger conversation that needs to continue, and it’s going to be one that is that many people are going to be afraid of because they don’t want to offend anybody, or they just don’t want to bring topics up that they don’t think should be brought up. But the reality is, women’s health care is health care, and we have to be able to talk about what all the needs are, and we need to make sure that women are getting those care those the access to that care that they need.
Erin Borla 27:44
Yeah, no, I think that’s really important. Thanks for spending time today and sharing all the work that you’re doing. It’s been such a great partnership with the Office of Rural Health, and it’s always fun to get to chat with you and hear about the wonderful things you’re working on, anything else you want to you want to share in closing?
Robert Duehmig 28:00
Just a thanks to you and the Roundhouse for the work that you guys do, the support you’ve given us on specific grant programs, but also because we’re out in rural as well, we see the work that your staff is doing, that your people that are out in the communities are are doing, and our ability to work with them really helps us connect in areas. You know, again, we talked about breaking down silos, and your organization works beyond healthcare, which is great, because then you can help us understand who in these communities we need to be talking to to break down that healthcare, education silo, or the economic development piece, and what are some of those economic development pieces we should be bringing to the healthcare table. So I want to thank you for the work you’re doing and the examples that you’re setting for other philanthropic organizations that are looking to figure out how to enter the rural space, because coming in from the outside to help rural is a great gesture, but if done wrong, can create as many problems as it can, can help. So the way you guys do it is great, and I’m glad that you’re teaching other organizations how to do that.
Erin Borla 29:11
Well, thanks. And we certainly do that with partners like you all. So I always want to, like, we can’t do it alone, so I’m glad to be in partnership, but thanks for spending time today. It’s always good to see you.
Robert Duehmig 29:21
Yep, you as well. Thank you.
Erin Borla 29:36
Finding partners in the space if you’re if you’re not available to be on the ground in every rural community, which would be very, very difficult to do. What are ways that philanthropy can identify key partners that act as intermediaries, that are on the ground, that help inform the work that we do, and allow philanthropic organizations to just start getting some dollars on the ground in rural. Let’s talk about other partners as well. Well, I love that Bob talked about the whole K-12 system as an access point for health care, right? That’s the future of our health care system. It’s not just inspiring young young people to get good health care for themselves and their families, but to see themselves in the future as EMTs or counselors or nurses or doctors in their rural or remote community. There are several ways that philanthropy can support young people having access to those opportunities, where they can look into the mirror and see themselves in that space. There’s going to be links to programs that Bob’s office leads and other resources around rural healthcare available at FundingRural.com
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