North Carolina’s hospitals and health systems provide more than just healthcare services. They also blend medical know-how with community engagement and technology to help prevent and manage chronic conditions and to address factors affecting health like access to healthy food and transportation. Learn how health systems and hospitals work with local employers, schools, faith organizations and other partners to build healthier, vibrant communities.

Five rural healthcare leaders from across the state recently came together for a virtual town hall to discuss how their hospitals and health systems are creating healthier communities. This program is part of a series hosted by the North Carolina Healthcare Association.

ICYMI: Watch part 1 of this discussion, focused on urban communities. 

Here are some key takeaways from the conversation:  

Hospitals help support the livelihood of rural communities 

Hospitals are pillars in their communities and support economic development by providing education and employment opportunities that create stronger, more resilient citizens. “Our approach here at Northern Regional Hospital is to be engaged in all areas of community life. We recognize, like most hospitals, that we are the largest employer in the city of Mount Airy and one of the largest in the region,” said Chris Lumsden, President and CEO of Northern Regional Hospital. Lumsden emphasized that hospitals engage in a mutually beneficial relationship with the surrounding community. “If the hospital is healthy, the community [members] in a rural community will be healthy, and vice versa.” 

Penney Burlingame Deal, President and CEO of Onslow Memorial Hospital, also touched on the relationship that hospitals share with their community. “In rural settings, hospitals play a part in community resilience,” expressed Burlingame Deal. Communities can support and sustain quality health and social services by attracting and retaining well trained healthcare professionals. This can then lead to a stronger economy, which in turn supports a stronger local healthcare system. “It’s recognition of that link between rural healthcare, economic strength, and overall vitality…it’s kind of this self-perpetuating feedback loop.” 

John Green, President and CEO of Iredell Health System discussed how every hospital and health system is driven by a mission and vision statement, and while each is different, they all guide people towards optimal health. More importantly, this is not always done within the four walls of the hospital. Often times, hospitals are working outside of their brick-and-mortar establishments – directly in the communities they serve – to accomplish their goals. “We do that throughout the whole community, and we do it based on the needs of each part of that community,” said Green. 

To that point, Annie Carpenter, Assistant Vice President of Community Engagement at Mission Health added, “We go beyond the hospital walls with our community approaches, and not just because we serve the community, but because we are the community.” 

Hospitals invest in their communities to address the unique and diverse challenges they face. 

Every community is unique, so it is important that hospitals listen to the needs of their community members when developing programs and initiatives. Patrick Woodie, President and CEO of the NC Rural Center, and the moderator of this conversation, shared a saying from his years of work in rural health, “when you’ve seen one rural community, you’ve seen one rural community.” This underscores that each community is characterized by its distinct array of challenges, and they must be addressed in their own unique ways.  

Todd Hickey, Chief Strategy Officer of ECU Health mentioned how ECU Health is always assessing how they can invest back into the community. They do this by donating funds to support community partners, developing initiatives aimed at improving health, and through other avenues. “We see that as a role of a good steward of healthcare in a community, but also recognizing that it’s our partnerships that really connect our services to our patients, and if you will, our population,” said Hickey. 

Hospitals also play a big role in strengthening the local workforce. Chris Lumsden noted that 85 percent of Northern Regional Hospital’s employees were raised and live within a 25-mile radius of the hospital. In addition, 85 percent of high school students that leave this area for work or college, do not return. “The message is, we have to grow our own. And that’s a theme that we have created through education assistance scholarship programs,” expressed Lumsden. To combat this, Northern Regional Hospital has stood up multiple programs that encourage students to not only pursue careers in healthcare, but to also stay and serve in their community. 

Hospitals in rural communities use innovation to expand their reach and build more accessible health care.  

Hospitals and health systems in rural communities are evolving with the changing landscape of health care. They are overcoming barriers to care and expanding access to care through innovative solutions, emphasizing a focus on maintaining good health for all.  

Telehealth has blossomed as an accessible option to care, but internet connection can be sparse in some rural communities and hospitals are creating solutions to bridge the gap. “Working with our civic partners, counties and townships, trying to build out and create the funding through grants, through alignment of federal funding to help expand that [broadband] is a big deal,” said Todd Hickey. Hickey connects the availability to broadband with a greater opportunity for people in rural communities to get preventative care and early intervention for serious conditions. 

Related to telehealth, Penney Burlingame-Deal said, “it is a great way of really thinking outside of the box and using innovation to make things happen that wouldn’t happen otherwise”. In addition, John Green touched on a need for stable internet access in all rural communities and technology training, especially for aging populations, highlighting the digital-based resources that will lead the future of health care.  

Care options combatting opioid addiction are expanding and improving as well. Annie Carpenter mentioned a pilot program newly introduced to Blue Ridge Regional Hospital and Mission Hospital, where patients can receive medication-assisted treatment within the emergency department, an effective evidence-based practice to disrupt the addiction cycle. According to Carpenter, this care approach can impact the capacity and volume the health system while combatting the rise in opioid overdoses in the region.    

“The community has been working together on responses at such a rapid rate to save lives. [The pilot] It’s something our partners in the community have been eager to see as well,” said Carpenter.   

Launching more impactful programs that promote better health within rural communities often requires research and advocacy to accelerate the implementation of those programs. John Green mentioned at smaller rural hospitals, a detailed approach is necessary to implement new ideas in order to make the most of time and funding. It may be more difficult to find an effective solution using a trial-and-error approach. To advance new initiatives and programs, hospitals may glean successful ideas from other hospitals in areas with similar populations in communities with similar challenges, implementing what worked in the pilot program as a potential solution for their own community.   

“I think research that allows us to see this is going to work, or we believe this should work is a huge difference to us,” said John Green.