THE RURAL NURSING-HOME INDUSTRY - A NATIONAL DESCRIPTION

Although the rural component of the nursing home industry is an $11 bi llion per year enterprise, very little is known about the unique chara cter and structure of rural nursing homes. Using data from a 1991 nati onal census of nursing homes, this investigation compares facilities ( N = 13,081) in nine different county types. Significant variation by g eographic location was observed in the availability, size, and charact er of long-ten care facilities. Such differences have important implic ations for the role rural nursing homes may assume in a health care sy stem that in the future will be dominated by managed care principles a nd the creation of integrated health care systems that include a wide range of patient care services.