National Rural Health Day is Thursday, Nov. 20. Rochelle Community Hospital is the only facility of its kind in Ogle County and the only hospital in a 30-minute radius of Rochelle.

RCH will be celebrating NRHD, with its Wellness Committee handing out gifts and healthy snacks to employees, who will also take pictures and participate in a contest by providing responses on what rural health means to them.

“I think people that are in rural settings assume everyone knows about rural healthcare, and people not in rural settings don’t know the difference,” RCH Marketing & Public Relations Specialist Kirby Heward said. “It’s about bringing attention to the things that make rural healthcare important and the need for RCH’s services and how certain things affect us. Some of the comments from staff have been really meaningful. Some of them you can tell research went into them. We want people to start thinking of rural health.”

Since 2011, the annual observance – founded and coordinated by the National Organization of State Offices of Rural Health – has been held on the third Thursday of November to spotlight the unique healthcare challenges and strength of the nearly 61 million people living in rural America.

RCH Chief Human Resources Officer Denise Bauer said she believes rural health is personable, caring and consistent.

“We know each other as family, friends and neighbors and that’s how we treat the community that comes in,” Bauer said. “We’re here for people in the community. It’s about access and timing. People can get in for tests quicker here and into our providers and the ER quicker. We have state-of-the-art equipment in our lab and radiology departments. Just because we’re rural doesn’t mean we don’t have up to date services and equipment.”

RCH Cardiac Rehab RN Lisa Charboneau said rural health means people having access to quality healthcare regardless of where they live.

“I think we have a great hospital and we provide for the whole surrounding community,” Charboneau said. “There are a lot of people from other areas that drive here because we’re good at being personable. People are a name here, not a number.”

RCH is a critical access hospital, a designation given to eligible rural hospitals by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The designation is designed to reduce the financial vulnerability of rural hospitals and improve access to healthcare by keeping essential services in rural communities. To accomplish this goal, CAHs receive certain benefits, such as cost-based reimbursement for Medicare services.

Critical access hospitals have 25 or fewer acute care inpatient beds, are located fewer than 35 miles away from another hospital with exceptions, maintain an annual average length of stay of 96 hours or less for acute care patients, and provide 24/7 emergency care services

“In the suburbs, people may have a dozen healthcare facilities within an hour of them that they can choose from,” Heward said. “That isn’t the way it is here. There’s a lot of importance there and we want people to understand that.”

RCH is an independent, nonprofit hospital. It employs 347 people. RCH Human Resources Generalist Lorena Hueramo said it’s always easy to find a connection at the facility.

“It’s a happy feeling when someone in our community needs help and they come here,” Hueramo said. “Everyone here helps people find their way in the hallways. That’s always a good feeling.”

Many of RCH’s employees live in Rochelle and receive care for themselves and their family members there. RCH Employee Health Nurse Kelly Musselman said having the hospital in the community is a comfort for her.

“It’s knowing that your coworkers are taking care of your loved ones and friends and that they’ll get the care that they deserve here,” Musselman said. “It’s peace of mind. We are small and you do have those relationships with everybody within the facility. If someone goes to the ER, you know who their nurse was and that they got good care.

“The familiarity we have here is a comfort for the patients and their families. Seeing a friendly face that you know from the community and having that person take care of you makes everyone more comfortable.”