From Becker’s Review

The Pennsylvania Department of Health (DOH) published the 2024 SHIP Annual Report which now is live on the State Health Improvement Plan (SHIP) website.

This annual report provides an outline of the diverse initiatives underway by DOH’s SHIP partners and serves as a compilation of the work conducted by many different organizations in 2024 to reach the same goals. Information includes activities reported by SHIP goal team members and highlights their successes and progress. Data charts for SHIP objectives are provided to visualize trends and track the status of identified health priorities.

This annual report is shared with the public to increase knowledge of the efforts occurring throughout the Commonwealth on priority health issues, to celebrate the work of our SHIP partners, and to ensure open communication of SHIP implementation.

The Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council’s (PHC4) Financial Analysis 2024 – Rural Hospitals report displays information specific to Pennsylvania general acute care (GAC) hospitals located in rural counties. Supplementary to PHC4’s Financial Analysis, this is the second report in this new annual series, offering succinct data to support all who rely on rural health care in the Commonwealth.

Rural hospitals, which comprise 41% of Pennsylvania’s statewide total number of GAC hospitals, exhibit distinct financial characteristics. This analysis focuses on the 63 GAC hospitals located in rural areas in fiscal year 2024 (FY24). Of these 63 rural hospitals, 22 (35%) reported operating losses during FY24 based on their operating margins. The average net patient revenue for these hospitals operating at a loss was $80 million in FY24. The key factors that may contribute to the financial challenges at rural hospitals include:

• Decreased Reimbursements: Reduced payments from government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid placing significant financial pressure on rural hospitals.
• Aging Populations: Rural communities often have older populations, typically requiring more complex and costly medical care.
• Lower Patient Volume: Serving smaller populations limits revenue potential, making it harder for rural hospitals to cover operating expenses.
• Higher Operating Costs: Geographic and logistical challenges—such as transportation, staffing shortages, and maintaining specialized services—contribute to elevated costs.
• Uncompensated Care: Rural hospitals face a growing burden of uncompensated care, including patient bad debt and charity care.

PHC4 strives to ensure Pennsylvanians are armed with publicly available, fact-based, health care information and plans to continuously enrich its reporting and the resources it develops to bring value to communities across the Commonwealth.

In addition, PHC4 produces information used to identify opportunities to contain costs and improve the quality of care delivered. For more information, visit phc4.org or access the report here.

PHC4 is an independent council formed under Pennsylvania statute (Act 89 of 1986, as amended by Act 15 of 2020) in order to address rapidly growing health care costs. PHC4 continues to produce comparative information about the most efficient and effective health care to individual consumers and group purchasers of health services. In addition, PHC4 produces information used to identify opportunities to contain costs and improve the quality of care delivered.  

Individuals with disabilities face challenges with finding accessible transportation, barriers in access to quality care, as well as increased financial burdens. Although access to care is a population health concern, there is less research on how access varies at the intersection of rurality and disability status.

This policy brief from the University of Minnesota Rural Health Research Center examines various financial and non-financial barriers to health care access among rural and urban individuals by disability status.

Access the report here.

The Pennsylvania Health Care Containment Council (PHC4) regularly releases new County-Level Utilization and Condition-Specific Reports using the timeliest data available in an effort to provide insight into hospital and ambulatory/outpatient surgery center usage across the Commonwealth.

The County-Level Utilization Reports are updated every quarter and show the overall total number of inpatient hospitalizations and ambulatory/outpatient cases for Pennsylvania residents. These results are displayed by patient age, sex, and payer. The newly released County-Level Utilization Reports reflect data from Q2 of 2025.

PHC4’s County-Level Condition-Specific Reports focus on several high interest conditions displaying county-specific rates of hospitalization for Pennsylvania residents. This information reflects data from the state fiscal year 2025, which is July 1, 2024, through June 30, 2025. The analysis within the County-Level Condition-Specific Reports is limited to Pennsylvania general acute care hospitals.

For more information, visit phc4.org or access the reports here.