Student name

Capella University

NHS-FPX6008 Economics and Decision Making in Healthcare

Professor Name

Submission Date

Lobbying for Change

To,

The Honorable Governor Bill Lee,

Governor of Tennessee,

State Capitol, Nashville, TN 37243, United States.

Dear Governor Lee,

Please participate and take action in the fight against the appalling lack of access to health care services in the rural population of our state. The issue continues to strain emergency rooms, stress out healthcare providers, and cause unfavorable health results among underserved communities. Such vulnerable populations require immediate intervention to assist in achieving equitable, opportune, and sustainable care. My experience with the front-line has enabled me to observe how failure to receive care promptly can result in untenable patient suffering and complications in the long term.

There are high rural residents in Tennessee who are under Greenfield Medical Center, and cannot access timely, preventive, and coordinated health care due to geographic isolation, workforce deployment issues, and gaps in infrastructure. These barriers have contributed to the wrong utilization of emergency care in situations that would have been handled earlier, which results in higher medical costs and fewer resources occupy limited ones (Ranjit & Kissoon, 2021). Because of this, not only are the providers reporting high rates of burnout and turnover, but patients, many of whom are your constituents, are dying at a rapidly growing rate due to avoidable complications and worsening health results. It is a kind of crisis that has been troubling the health and economic conditions of the rural communities around the state.

The solution of the rural Tennessee health care access gap will mean a substantial difference at the patient and provider level within the communities, including those served by the Greenfield Medical Center. The ensuing job satisfaction and retention will be achieved by reducing congestion in emergency rooms, chronic illnesses, avoidable hospitalizations, and provider burnout through increased access (Sartini et al., 2022). Those changes will also reconstruct the community trust and enhance continuity of care. Instead, inactivity will perpetuate workforce shortages and turnover, raise the cost of healthcare due to inpatient care that might have been avoided, and exacerbate health disparities, which will aggravate the health and economic conditions of rural populations.

Having more access to care in Tennessee rural communities is not only morally correct, but it is also a cost-effective concept. A study by Hawrilenko et al. (2025) states that the returns on investments (ROI) of telehealth services to rural health systems can be excellent, as the cost of traveling to the emergency room can be mitigated, and more efficient management of chronic diseases is possible. However, the effectiveness of telehealth depends on digital literacy and accessibility, which, as Rajamani et al. (2021) found, could be resolved with the help of community-based training programs to increase patient engagement and technological use. Another economic factor is the retention of the workforce. According to Arredondo et al., stronger incentives like loan forgiveness and bonuses could ensure that the employment and retention of providers in rural areas are increased dramatically, as the current turnover rates of providers are estimated to cost up to 40,000-60,000 dollars.

The latter can also be reflected in terms of the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA, 2025), which reported that more than 66% of rural communities have primary care shortage areas. Moreover, more efficient and sustainable care is also realized through the absence of redundant services and hospital readmission in coordinated care provided by interdisciplinary teams (Ghorbanzadeh et al., 2021). Regarding equity, the provision of care is equivalent to the ANA Code of Ethics and helps to eliminate racial and geographic disparities. Both Sun et al. (2021) and Malayala et al. (2021) note that culturally competent care models both improve outcomes and build trust and engagement with underserved populations in the long term.

Working at Greenfield Medical Center as a nurse has provided me with a personal experience of the devastating nature of limited access to care, both to the patients and to the providers. In our emergency department, patients arrive too late when they are in serious conditions, and most of them lose their lives, as they would have been saved by means of timely treatment. This has led to staff burnout, increased staff turnover, and heart-wrenching ethical decisions like the treatment of patients with serious and avoidable illness (Silverman et al., 2021). These experiences made me realize that there are certain solutions that I should consider to solve these issues. This has been the planning process of our organization, wherein telehealth expansion, provider incentives programs, and interdisciplinary care teams have been incorporated, and have taught us the value of strategic resource use and strategic risk reduction to ensure that our rural population receives sustainable and equitable care.

The problem of health care access in rural areas remains a severe issue that has been impacting the health, safety, and economic well-being of the communities in Tennessee. The solution to this problem, using sustainable evidence-based interventions, will benefit health, reduce costs, and restore confidence in the medical healthcare system (Berry et al., 2023). I am requesting Governor Lee of the State of Georgia to support rural broadband expansion, encourage telehealth, provider incentives, and the use of the grant funds available to us to bring lasting and equitable change. It is because of your leadership and your continued commitment to the health of the citizens of Tennessee.

Sincerely,

Brandon Miller