Rural regions are well known to face greater barriers to accessing public services than their urban counterparts. However, when applying definitions of rurality to healthcare service accessibility research, no existing definition adequately fit the analysis conducted. Available measures were either unidimensional (e.g., based solely on population density) and/or based on city-centric definitions, failing to capture the variation within city regions. One way to address these challenges is by developing a service-specific measure of rurality that accounts for small-area variations in a country as vast as Canada, integrating considerations such as city size, population, and proximity to services. This is particularly important for essential public services such as 24-hour emergency departments (EDs), where differences in service proximity can directly impact quality of life. This presentation will examine the application of the Canadian Accessibility/Remoteness Index (CARI+) to measure service-specific differences in rurality, comparing it to generalized models and other commonly used rurality measures in Canada. This includes the development of a standardized score using an adapted methodology from the generalized CARI+ model, normalized index values, and meaningful groupings to better categorize and assess degrees of rurality. These values will then be compared to those derived from the generalized CARI model and the Index of Remoteness, a widely used rurality measure in Canada.