Looking Back But Leaning Forward: New Opportunities and Challenges for North Carolina's Rural Communities.

Rural North Carolina is as diverse as it is beautiful. Each community, county, and region presents a unique set of challenges and opportunities in maintaining and improving the health of its people. Forty-five years ago, Jim Bernstein and other leaders in the state understood that in order to provide access to care and equalize the chances rural North Carolinians have to thrive, a focused approach was necessary.

Medical Residents' Experiences With Medically Unexplained Illness and Medically Unexplained Symptoms.

Patients who present with medically unexplained illnesses or medically unexplained symptoms (MUI/S) tend to be higher utilizers of health care services and have significantly greater health care costs than other patients, which add stress and strain for both the patient and provider. Although MUI/S are commonly seen in primary care, there is not sufficient information available regarding how providers can increase their level of confidence and decrease their level of frustration when working with patients who present with MUI/S. The goal of this article is to present findings from a qualitative phenomenology study, which highlights medical residents' experiences of caring for patients with MUI/S and the personal and professional factors that contributed to their clinical approaches.

The importance of health insurance and the safety net in rural communities.

Access to health insurance and health care are critical for people living in rural communities, where the safety net is fragile. However, rural communities face challenges as they enroll uninsured people in the health insurance marketplace, educate newly insured individuals on how to use insurance, and coordinate care for those who remain uninsured.

Integrated primary care: a systematic review of program characteristics.

The integration of behavioral health services into primary care medical settings may be part of the solution to the fragmented health care system currently found in the United States. Although integrated primary care (IPC) is implemented in various locations across the United States, little information is available about how IPC is specifically practiced. Using a systematic review design, we extracted data from 76 articles to examine 6 categories of IPC program characteristics, including collaboration practices (e.