News from rural America.

Mobile MRI units in North Dakota improve residents' health and save hospitals money, owners of older manufactured housing are getting help to cope with extreme temperatures and western states restore river health using a low-tech 'sticks and stones' approach.

TRANSCRIPT

For the Daily Yonder and Public News Service, this is the news from rural America.

A mobile MRI unit that makes weekly visits is bringing a huge improvement to the healthcare of one small North Dakota town.

The 1,400 residents of Bowman would otherwise have to drive 40 minutes to reach the kind of expensive medical equipment that local healthcare providers can't afford.

Southwest Healthcare Services CEO, Dennis Goebel, says independent rural hospitals are now joining clinically integrated networks to share resources.

Group purchasing, greater volumes, lower pricing, and just learning from each other how to do things using best practice kind of as a guide.

Really helps each individual community.

Subilo Health helps build the networks.

That company's CEO, Nathan White, says they use value-based contracts which reimburse providers based on the quality of care and patients' outcomes.

Being able to open up those new revenue opportunities is sort of a half of the pie in improving your revenue position.

Extreme temperatures pose a serious threat to folks in older mobile homes with outdated heating and cooling.

But as Susanna Brown reports, there are new programs that help owners prepare.

One in seven rural American households live in a manufactured home, twice the national average.

In Oregon, the nonprofit Energy Trust is helping mobile home owners replace those built prior to 1995.

That includes Shawn King and her husband, Brian.

It's so important to help lower income people to be able to achieve a newer home that's safe.

Arizona State University professor Patricia Solis says long-term solutions like mobile home replacement and weatherization are essential and could solve more than one problem.

If you want to solve the heat problem, why don't we solve the housing problem at the same time?

Manufactured housing is a great solution.

Can we create heat-smart, affordable housing?

I'm Susanna Brown.

Across seven arid Western states, Low-tech sticks and stones restoration is improving the health of rivers and streams.

Historically, many waterways operated just fine with the help of beavers.

But centuries of human activity turned many into fast-moving channels that dry up after snow melts.

Using tools from nature, Ryan Messinger with Colorado's Yampa Valley Sustainability Council says workers create speed bumps to slow the Yampa River's flow and allow streams to connect with their floodplains.

After a few years with nature interacting with what you've created, you're giving nature the opportunity to restore itself.

The projects frequently employ local youth corps members, helping them build careers by learning hands on conservation skills.

No matter how big or small the project, Messenger reminds volunteers their work matters.

It's important.

It's part of a much grander series of projects that are going on that are creating resiliency throughout the West.

For the Daily Yonder and Public News Service, I'm Roz Brown.

For more rural stories, visit dailyyonder.com.