I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
USA Today recently profiled some innovative approaches other states are using to meet the challenges of delivering healthcare. Some of them could help New Mexico plan for the more than 150,000 previously uninsured New Mexicans who will qualify for health coverage under the new federal health care law.
Some of those innovative approaches include using more nurse practitioners, communicating with patients over the phone or via e-mail, and using shared medical appointments.
New Mexico might have too few physicians, physician’s assistants, registered nurses and other medical professionals to respond to the influx of new patients, state officials said earlier this year. And many medical professionals are concentrated in three areas — metro Albuquerque, Las Cruces and Santa Fe, and not even spread around the state.
Some already are calling for the state to turn to nurse practitioners and physician’s assistants to help fill the gap.
Of course New Mexico faces challenges not easily remedied in part due to its rural character.
There are a dwindling number of primary care physicians in small, rural counties, making it unclear how the state will respond in the short term to the challenge.
According to a report issued earlier this year by the New Mexico Health Policy Commission, Hidalgo County had no licensed physicians in 2009. Hidalgo County, near Arizona, forms the boot heel of the state, and is a large rural county — 3,440 square miles – with nearly 5,000 residents.
In fact, around 70 percent of the state’s 4,689 physicians were licensed in three counties – Bernalillo, Santa Fe and Doña Ana, where about half the state’s population lives — with just over half the physicians licensed in Bernalillo County, the same report said.
In addition to that New Mexico has large tracts of sparsely populated areas or rural communities without a thick supply of medical providers and that often means hospitals pick up the slack, Jeff Dye of the New Mexico Hospital Association, told a group of state officials earlier this year.
