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b'Recently, the hospital leadership team of Ouachita County Medical Center, in Camden, Ark., made the \\u201cheart-wrenching decision\\u201d to close a rural health clinic that the hospital had operated for 25 years. Leaders and staff also took wage cuts and reduced work hours. Take that one sad event \\u2026 multiply it by more than 135 times over the past dozen years \\u2026 and you\\u2019ve got some idea of the alarming economic challenges facing our nation\\u2019s rural and low-volume hospitals. Hospitals and health systems across the United States are experiencing unprecedented financial pressures right now. Labor shortages, increased expenses, and lower Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rates impact most care providers, and none more so than rural hospitals. \\n\\nOn this Leadership Dialogue Series podcast, AHA Board Chair Wright L. Lassiter III is joined by Peggy Abbott, CEO of Ouachita County Medical Center to discuss how the current economic stressors are affecting the small, rural hospital she leads. Like every hospital leader, Abbott\\u2019s foremost concern is keeping the doors open and continuing to meet patients\\u2019 and community health needs. Lassiter and Abbott talk about what that\\u2019s going to take\\u2026what changes are needed to keep the health care system in America as we know it functioning. As Abbott says, \\u201cHospitals are too important to every community to let any hospital fail \\u2014 we need every hospital.\\u201d'