Archipelago of Health: Mission-driven partners provide care in Southeast.

• Author: Anderson, Tasha
• Position: HEALTHCARE - Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium

A 2018 Pew Research Center report states, "People living in rural areas have longer travel times to the nearest hospital." It's not an earth-shattering revelation, by any means, but the details are interesting. According to the report, rural Americans live an average of 10.5 miles from the nearest hospital, while those in the suburbs live 5.6 miles away and those in urban areas are 4.4 miles away, on average. This translates to average travel times of 17 minutes, 12 minutes, and 10 minutes, respectively. These are just averages, and the report recognizes that averages "mask considerable variation in access within community types."

Pew Research Center based these figures on a metric of "car travel time." The report's methodology didn't account for communities that are not on a road system. When one is trying to get a national picture of access to healthcare, perhaps that makes sense. But when one considers the healthcare needs of Alaskans, this report demonstrates the problem of relying on national data to inform local issues.

Affordable, practical access to healthcare is a nut Alaska has been attempting to crack for decades, and some progress has been made. Innovative programs of traveling healthcare practitioners and significant improvements in telehealth show the healthcare industry evolves to meet the needs of residents.

But each region of Alaska has its own needs and potential solutions, and Southeast is a particularly interesting space, as it has both fewer and more connections to surrounding communities. Some Panhandle communities, such as Haines, are accessible by road: it's about a fourteen-hour drive from Anchorage, assuming one has a passport. The "drive" from Wrangell to Anchorage is approximately the same as Wrangell to Seattle--roughly thirty-three hours--but both routes require the captain of one of the ferries that travel the Alaska Marine Highway to take the driver's seat for a portion of the trip.

Searching for Partnerships

Southeast, instead of relying on travel outside of the community, has built up a network of health services within the community. The Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium (SEARHC) is a nonprofit working to do exactly that through 100 providers in twenty-seven Southeast communities. One of its newest connections was made in March, when it welcomed Rainforest Pediatric Care to its Care Network, expanding its pediatric care services in Juneau. As part of the agreement, Rainforest Pediatric Care moved...