Many rural hospitals have reduced services or closed, but some communities are building new or updating old ones

Some rural communities in Wyoming, Kansas and Georgia are "bucking the trend" and building new hospitals instead of closing them. Sublette County, Wyoming, is one of those places. The county has never had a hospital, but it's building a 10-bed, 40,000-square-foot hospital, "with a similarly sized attached long-term care facility," reports Sarah Jane Tribble of KFF Health News. "New full-service hospitals with inpatient beds are rare in rural America, where declining population has spurred decades of downsizing and closures." The county's residents approved a tax increase to help fund their build.

Wyoming Hospital Association President Eric Boley, told Tribble, "To be honest with you, it even seems strange to me." Small rural “hospitals are really struggling all across the country." Tribble writes, "There is no official tally of new hospitals being built in rural America, but industry experts such as Boley said they’re rare. . . . Nearly 150 rural hospitals have closed or converted to smaller operations since 2010."

To stem rural hospital closures, the federal government began offering hospitals the option to remain open as emergency care facilities. "Since January 2023, when the program took effect, 32 of the more than 1,700 eligible rural hospitals have joined the program," Tribble explains. Tony Breitlow, a rural health care expert, told Trible that for some rural hospital groups, transitioning to emergency care only is an example of “systems figuring out how to remain robust and viable.”

Meanwhile, some rural areas have the funding to build new care facilities. "Freeman Health System, based in Joplin, Missouri, announced plans last year to build a new 50-bed hospital across the state line in Kansas," Tribble reports. "Paula Baker, Freeman’s president and chief executive, said the system is building for patients in the southeastern corner of the state who travel 45 minutes or more to its bigger Joplin facilities for care."

Some hospital developments in Wyoming and other states have tapped into federal dollars for support.  "Since 2021, the Department of Agriculture's Rural Community Facilities Programs have awarded $2.24 billion in loans and grants to 68 rural hospitals for work that was not related to an emergency or disaster," Tribble adds. "Nearly all the projects are replacements or expansions and updates of older facilities."