Dr. Laura Edgerley-Gibb, MD, FACEP
President-Elect, CO ACEP
Hello from your 2025 President Elect and friendly rural emergency physician!
Did you know that 47 of our 64 Colorado counties are rural? We have 32 critical access hospitals along with multiple small community hospitals in the state working to provide 24/7 care to our rural residents.
Rural emergency medicine is incredibly rewarding and challenging in all the best ways – we get to work with local community hospitals who are committed to reinvesting every penny back into their communities to provide care. Our ERs and hospitals are truly families where we care for neighbors, children, grandparents and friends – and where the grocery store is a prime location for another shopper to recognize you and let you know they recovered from the MI you diagnosed. We are managing pediatric DKA, stab wounds to the chest, elderly patients with broken hips and even the patient with an LVAD in town, waiting for their transplant.
As we look ahead into this next year, rural healthcare is facing threats from all directions. These hospitals provide significantly more care to patients with Medicaid and Medicare, so cuts to these programs (when the hospitals are already reinvesting every penny they earn into their systems) will hit rural hospitals hardest. There are more than 700 rural hospitals nationwide listed as “high risk” for closure based on the current cuts. Rural hospitals also provide significantly more uncompensated care compared to their urban and suburban counterparts.
As we look ahead, Colorado ACEP continues to find ways to support our rural patients and physicians in our support of legislation protecting rural hospitals and access to care.
Warmly,
Laura Edgerley-Gibb, MD, FACEP
CO ACEP President-Elect