Community members in Richland County may soon be receiving a survey form in their mailbox. This survey will be sent to a random sample of homes within the next couple of weeks which will help Sidney Health Center identify the health services needed in the community. This information will be used for strategic planning, grant applications, new programs, and by community groups interested in addressing health issues.
The National Rural Health Resource Center of Duluth, Minnesota is assisting Sidney Health Center in the analysis of local community needs, use of local health care services and overall community health. This process was developed to maintain quality health care to serve the continuing and future needs of the community.
The community healthcare assessment process promotes health care as a local affair. Health care delivered in rural communities is affordable, high quality, and necessary to the good health of the entire community. Citizens of rural counties can take responsibility for the health of their community by completing the survey they receive in their mailbox. Most communities face a large number of complex issues in providing high quality healthcare, but fortunately, Richland County can engage effective problem-solving, which is the most important factor in the survival of rural health services.
An accompanying goal of this process is to keep health care dollars within the local community. While the vast majority of health care can be provided locally, rural citizens often drive to large medical centers for care, spending money on health care and non-health care purchases that could be spent locally. It is estimated that within a typical rural community, millions of dollars of revenue is lost in this way. This revenue could be retained in the local community with stronger community-health care provider linkages.
Sidney Health Center’s campus features a clinic, hospital, cancer care center, sleep center, retail pharmacy, medical equipment store and an extended care facility, offering services from birth to end-of-life.
“We are partnering with the Montana Office of Rural Health at Montana State University to conduct this community health survey. We hope to receive valuable information from a wide range of participants to assist in planning our programs, services and facilities to meet present and future health care needs,” stated Rick Haraldson, Sidney Health Center CEO.
“We are pleased to be able to bring some of the best community health resources in the country to Sidney Health Center. The goal of this initiative is to assist forward-thinking rural hospitals and communities in aligning their resources, to address their present and future needs in the best way possible,” said Terry Hill, Executive Director of the National Rural Health Resource Center.
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