This commentary is by Tom Frank, CEO of North Country Hospital in Newport, and Shawn Tester, CEO of Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital in St. Johnsbury.
For North County Hospital and Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital, collaboration and teamwork to protect local access to services, keep costs down and provide great care to our neighbors in the Northeast Kingdom is essential to serve the vast region we cover. The region also includes Essex County in the furthest northeast corner of our state, as well as portions of Franklin, Lamoille and Orange Counties.
We are indeed the most rural region in our already very rural state. Our two small critical access hospitals, along with our partner home health agency and Federally Qualified Health Center, Northern Counties Health Care, are responsible for covering some 2,000 square miles, or 20% of the entire state’s land. We serve 55 municipalities and gores of the state’s total 256 municipalities and gores. So, you can see that working together to reduce wait times, shorten long drives and provide care for patients close to home, or even in their homes, is critical. It can even mean the difference between life and death. continue reading