Field Notes: A reporter goes deep in the coalfields of Central Appalachia [centerforhealthjournalism.org]

Alicia Doktor 2/4/1912:00 PM

We were in a planning meeting in early January, reviewing the punch list of things yet to do before the launch of our series “Sick, Broke and Left Behind,” scheduled to run January 20, when I got a call that breaking news was overtaking our first story.

Virginia’s Lee County was about to begin divorce proceedings from its hospital partner that had failed to deliver on a bucketful of sweet promises.

We had already planned for the first story to focus on Lee County, which lost its hospital in 2013 and has been trying since to reopen it. The closing of this hospital was the catalyst for what would follow — the merging of two rival hospital systems in the coalfields of Virginia and Tennessee, and directives by both states to the new system to improve population health.

[For more on this story by Luanne C Rife, go to https://www.centerforhealthjou...-central-appalachia?]

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