​The white paper Patients at the Centre: Sustaining Rural Maternity – It's All About the Surgery! focuses on putting patients first and fostering healthy rural communities through the collaborative planning, delivery, and evaluation of high-quality rural maternity and surgical services, delivered seamlessly across the continuum in formalized, team-based networks of care. 

Rural health service delivery networks have been promoted as an effective and efficient way to improve the quality and sustainability of rural maternity and surgical services. Prioritizing and enabling the development of rural health service delivery networks will enable the provision of sustainable, safe, and high-quality maternity and surgical programs in rural communities. Rural populations will benefit from improved access to care, including maternity services, and the provision of surgical, trauma, emergency, procedural, preventative, and recovery services as close to home as possible. 

Formalized interprofessional rural health service delivery networks are poised to deliver optimal care to rural residents, while improving both patient and provider experience and satisfaction, within a cost-effective framework.