Tag: health care

In episode 2, Marnie and Julie talk with CRPD board member Sue Grafstrom, who serves Roseau County as both Emergency Manager and the Minnesota Department of Health’s Public Health Preparedness Consultant for northwest Minnesota, a region that covers twelve counties and three tribes. We discuss the response to the COVID-19 pandemic in northwestern Minnesota.

By Sue Grafstrom, CRPD board member How does a small rural community respond to a global pandemic? My name is Sue Grafstrom, and that’s the question I have to answer. For the past two years I have been concurrently the Roseau County Emergency Manager and the Minnesota Department of Health’s Public Health Preparedness Consultant for ...

By Marnie Werner We’ve been hearing the stories in the last two weeks about rural hospitals, the lack of intensive care unit beds, and questions as to whether they’re prepared or not for the COVID-19 outbreak at our doorstep. So we decided to go to an expert, CRPD board member Santo Cruz, who is also ...

By Marnie Werner, Vice President, Research & Operations Telehealth has been a long time coming. Telehealth is technology that allows people to access health care services over long distances. We’ve seen it in movies almost since movies began and on futuristic TV shows like Star Trek. It was pioneered in the late 1900s, with stories ...

By Marnie Werner, Vice President, Research & Operations The beating heart of what we do here at the Center for Rural Policy and Development is our research—research pure and simple on policy issues that matter to rural Minnesota. It’s the beginning of the fiscal year for us, which means a new start to not just ...

What is “Letters to the New Governor”? A compilation of essays giving insights and recommendations by experts from around the state writing on issues of importance to Greater Minnesota. They comment on the ideas and motivations behind some of our most difficult policy questions facing our state, including the region’s changing demographics, the rural economy, the ...

  Our newest publication is “Letters to the New Governor,” a collection of essays by experts around the state writing on an overview of the issues in Greater Minnesota. Some of the authors include Tim Penny and Charlie Weaver on why the Twin Cities and Greater Minnesota need each other, Gary Wertish and Kevin Paap ...

  Crow Wing County Administrator and CRPD board member Tim Houle joins us again this week to talk about the complicated relationship between the county, state and federal governments. This week we look at the need for counties to communicate the local perspective to state lawmakers in St. Paul. As an example, Tim talks about ...

  We have a conversation this week with Thad Shunkwiler, assistant professor of Alcohol and Drug Studies at MN State University, Mankato, about addiction problems around the state besides opioids and a few of the issues that need to be addressed to tackle the problem.

  Last week Diana Anderson, president of the Southwest Initiative Foundation in Hutchinson, talked with us about the work they’re doing to close the opportunity gap for low-income families in southwest Minnesota. She joins us again this week to talk about their Grow Our Own summit coming up Nov. 8 in Marshall. At the summit ...