Join us on September 12, 2026, in Tacoma, WA or online and learn how you can take local action on the healthcare crisis facing small towns all across rural America
Finding Solutions
This one-day conference will help you respond to the damaging cuts in federal funding for patient care, scientific research, and disaster preparedness. It’s a day of sharing practical actions others are taking to mitigate this crisis. Four workshops will define the problems and compile action steps.
We all know that healthcare in America is political, and this conference comes at an especially crucial time for action — just seven weeks before the mid-term elections. As healthcare providers, our patients and we are on the receiving end of political decisions that may seem beyond our control. We work every day at the collision point between political decisions that cut healthcare and the bottom-up reality facing patients who need our help.
We Are Stronger Together: Sign Up Now
Attend this conference in person or online.
- Learn from four workshops that go right to the point and build action steps for all to share.
- Sign on to a Declaration on America’s Rural Healthcare Crisis to be issued to Congress, the White House, and other elected leaders.
- Take advantage of our 50% scholarship for Registered Emergency Workers.
- Potentially, obtain continuing professional education credits that are in the application stages.
- Have lunch with your colleagues, included for those who register to attend in-person in Tacoma
Hosted by:
Vashon Island Medical Reserve Corps
University of Washington Office of Rural Programs
Washington Area Health Education Center
The United States today, as we are all aware, appears to be in a healthcare crisis with increasing healthcare costs, increasing healthcare demands by Americans, a shrinking number of working physicians, a growing trend of Wall Street health system mergers and acquisitions, the increasing trend of de-personalizing the physician-patient experience prompting worsening patient satisfaction while at the same time embracing artificial intelligence to replace many common physician tasks and duties in the name of “efficiency”.
– Ed Lopez PA-C, Washington Medical Commission
Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/
87588260085 Passcode: Rural The conference will be recorded.
Agenda
07:30 Registration, breakfast
08:30 Welcome, housekeeping / John Osborn (15 minutes)
08:45 Keynote: America’s Rural Healthcare Crisis call to action / David Pearson (30 minutes)
09:15 Panel 1: Cuts to Medicaid and Closing Rural Clinics and Hospitals / Wendy Noble (75 minutes)
10:30 Break
10:45 Panel 2: Vaccinations and Public Health Effectiveness / Jim Bristow (75 minutes)
12:00 Lunch, networking
12:45 Panel 3: Compounding Deficiencies in Mental Health Services / Rebecca Chavez (60 minutes)
13:45 Break
14:00 Panel 4: Public Health Responses Without a Reliable Federal Partner / Rick Wallace (60 minutes)
15:00 Closing Plenary: Taking Action Together / all 4 moderators (50 minutes)
15:50 Next Steps: Putting it together and moving forward / John Osborn
16:00 End