Data-backed decision-making is crucial in healthcare, but it can often be challenging, especially for rural hospitals with limited resources. However, from this week’s conversation on Rural Health Leadership Radio, we learned that using, analyzing, and understanding community health data is more than achievable for rural hospitals.
Join us this week as we engage in a conversation with Liz Craker, Health Systems Support Coordinator for the Office of Primary Care and Rural Health within the Utah Department of Health and Human Services, and John Wadsworth, Co-Founder of REDiHealth. We discuss how leveraging data to understand patient populations can help increase access to care and manage care gaps in rural areas. Liz and John discuss the importance of their collaboration with each other and the rural hospitals they serve. We also delve into the exciting aspects of rural health, including fast-paced innovation, creativity, and how they are assisting rural hospitals in using data to support these efforts.
“The cadence and amount of innovation in rural areas is staggering to when people understand and trust their data.”
-John Wadsworth
Liz Craker serves as the Health Systems Support Coordinator for the Office of Primary Care and Rural Health at the Utah Department of Health and Human Services. She earned her BA in Journalism from Franklin College and her MBA in Healthcare Administration from Indiana Wesleyan University. She has over 30 years of leadership, project management, non-profit management, grant writing, public relations, patient advocacy, and health equity experience. She previously worked in a Federally Qualified Health Center advocating for insurance enrollment and health literacy before coming to the Utah Department of Health and Human Services.
John Wadsworth is a co-founder at REDiHealth where he helps healthcare institutions to turn data into actionable assets. He is skilled at designing and implementing analytic strategies resulting in operational, clinical, and financial improvements. His passion for the healthcare industry stems from helping communities leverage data to improve community health with the desired result of strengthening the overall quality of life. John earned his Bachelor of Science in Human Genetics from The University of Utah and his Master of Science in Biomedical Informatics from the University of Utah School of Medicine.