title: Changing the care process: a new concept in Iranian rural health care.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Health care delivery systems in rural areas face numerous challenges in meeting the community's needs. There is a lack of adequate attention for this problem. This study aims to explore the challenges of the health care process in rural Iran according to health care providers' experiences.
  
  
  METHODS
  This was a qualitative study that used the content analysis method. We selected a total of 21 health care providers based on purposive sampling. Data collection consisted of semi-structured individual interviews that were analyzed by qualitative content analysis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Data analysis led to the formation of one main category, the challenges of process of health care in rural society. Within this main category, we created the following subcategories: change in characteristics of the rural society, increase in complexity of the health care process, decrease in workforce efficiency, and decrease in propensity of people's care.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The findings of this study indicate that the process of health care in Iranian rural society is changing rapidly with community health workers encountering new challenges. There is diminished efficiency in responding to the changing care process in Iran's rural society. Considering this change in process of care, therefore, the health care system should respond to these new challenges by establishing new health care models.
authors.affiliation: Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran.
authors.forename: Abbas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Abbaszadeh
authors.affiliation: Bam International Unit, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Bam, and Department of Nursing and Midwifery, Arsanjan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Arsanjan, Iran. Electronic address: yasna_eskandari@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Manijeh
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Eskandari
authors.affiliation: Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran.
authors.forename: Fariba
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Borhani