Fritz Allhoff and Luke Golemon
HEC Forum 32.4 (2020): 313-31.
Publication year: 2019

Fritz Allhoff and Luke Golemon, “Rural Bioethics:  The Alaska Context”, HEC Forum 32.4 (2020):  313-31.

Abstract:  With by far the lowest population density in the United States, myriad challenges attach to healthcare delivery in Alaska. In the “Size, Population, and (In)Accessi- bility” section, we characterize this geographic context, including how it is exacer- bated by lack of infrastructure. In the “Distributing Healthcare” section, we turn to healthcare economics and staffing, showing how these bear on delivery—and are exacerbated by geography. In the “Health Care in Rural Alaska” section, we turn to rural care, exploring in more depth what healthcare delivery looks like outside of Alaska’s major cities. This discussion continues in the “Alaska’s Native Villages” section, which specifically analyzes healthcare in Alaska’s indigenous villages, some of the smallest and most isolated communities in the United States. Though many of the ways we could improve Alaskan health care for Alaskan residents are limited by its unique features, the “Justice and Healthcare Delivery” and “Technol- ogy and Telemedicine” sections consider ways in which certain policies and tech- nology—including telemedicine—could mitigate the challenges developed in previ- ous sections.