Rural Hospitals Help Nurse Retention Rate.

• Position: HEALTH CARE

Rural areas that do not have a hospital in the community experience increased nurse turnover, according to a study coauthored by Elena An-dreyeva, assistant professor at the Texas A&M University School of Public Health.

The research team's most important finding was that the presence of a hospital in a community serves as the linchpin supporting nurse retention in these rural areas. Communities without an affiliate hospital had a 27% nursing turnover rate during the study's two-year period. In comparison, the turnover rate was approximately 18% in rural communities that had an affiliated acute hospital or a critical access hospital.

This study is important because of the increasing number of closures of rural hospitals in the U.S. The Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform points out that more than 130 rural hospitals have been shuttered over the past decade, while an additional 600 are at risk of closure.

"If you think of a hospital serving as an anchor for all of the health care resources and facilities in the particular area, if that anchor is gone, there is a ripple effect across other health care facilities," Andreyeva says. "The hospital's loss makes things worse...