Changing reimbursement models are expanding hospital care beyond the treatment and recovery of individuals, to include a focus on overall population health. Hospitals are being incented to keep community members healthy.
Read more about Chadron Community Hospital and Health Services (CCHHS) in Chadron, Nebraska and their efforts to assess community needs and engage as a strong partner to identify and build solutions. Recognizing that a hospital’s viability is contingent on having a sufficient population to serve, Harold Krueger, CCHHS’s Chief Executive Officer, focuses on all aspects of the community’s health, not just hospital-delivered health care.
The hospital has made the commitment to ‘step up’ to deliver services when community gaps are unmet, including:
- Assisted living. Prairie Pines Lodge, within CCHHS, offers retirees a healthy lifestyle option within the community. It is supported with respite care, dementia care and long-term care, with in-building clinic services, including immunizations, home health and hospice
- Community service programs. CCHHS manages Western Community Health Resources (WCHR), a community action agency. Services programming incorporates health services like immunizations, reproductive health, and HIV testing and counseling; behavioral health; nutrition through the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) food program; family services like car seat safety checks; and diabetes prevention education.
- Scholarship program. CCHHS funds a large scholarship program to develop a local skilled workforce and cultivate a commitment for young adults to return after college to live in and support the rural hometown.
The efforts of Chadron Community Hospital and Health Services is an amazing testament to what a small rural community is able to do and the impact that can be made.
Chadron Community Hospital and Health Services – Big enough to serve. Small enough to care.
Read more about this effort in the Rural Health Value, developed by the Rural Policy Research Initiative (RUPRI).