National Rural Health Day shines light on the importance of health care in rural communities

Oconto County – National Rural Health Day, founded by the National Organization of State Offices of Rural Health (NOSORH), will be celebrated on Thursday, Nov. 17. The day of recognition highlights the critical roles filled by rural hospitals and health care clinics across the country.

Collectively, HSHS St. Clare Memorial Hospital and Prevea Health offer five Rural Health Clinics (RHCs) throughout Oconto County to provide not only health care, but jobs to the region. The services offered at these health care clinics and the hospital ensure residents have access to high-quality, modern health care options close to home.

Nationally, it’s estimated nearly 57 million Americans – one in five people – live in rural and frontier communities throughout the United States. With so many people in rural areas, HSHS St. Clare Memorial Hospital Prevea Health Centers located in Oconto Falls, Gillett, Lena, Mountain and Suring are proud to provide primary care to all their neighbors.

“Offering high-quality health care in our rural communities in Northeast Wisconsin makes a difference in the well-being and health of countless families across our region,” said Nicole Stapleton, Director of HSHS St. Clare Memorial Hospital Prevea Health Centers. “Whether it’s staying on top of your yearly physical, managing diabetes or therapy treatments - we fill these health care needs and more for all our patients and are honored to do so.”

In addition to primary medical care at the rural health clinics, community members have access to 24-hour emergency care, surgical care, and more, at HSHS St. Clare Memorial Hospital, 855 S. Main St. in Oconto Falls. This year, HSHS St. Clare Memorial Hospital was named a Top 100 Critical Access Hospital in the U.S. by the Chartis Center for Rural Health.

“Our team takes pride in the fact that based on our experience, we can offer peace of mind to our rural community members who need their health care needs met,” said Chris Brabant, President and CEO of HSHS St. Clare Memorial Hospital. “Additionally, because of our rural health clinics, located between Oconto Falls and Mountain, our neighbors continually have access to the highest level of care, close to home.”

For more information about the HSHS St. Clare Memorial Hospital Prevea Health Centers, please visit: https://www.hshs.org/StClare/Services/Primary-Care/Rural-health-clinics

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About HSHS St. Clare Memorial Hospital
HSHS St. Clare Memorial Hospital serves Oconto Falls and the surrounding communities as a federally-designated critical access hospital with a 24-hour emergency department, urgent care, general, vascular and orthopedic surgical services, inpatient and outpatient surgical and diagnostic services, rehabilitation, oncology outpatient clinic and women’s care. HSHS St. Clare Memorial Hospital, in affiliation with Prevea Health, has five regional health center locations in Gillett, Lena, Mountain, Oconto Falls and Suring. Founded in 1921 as Community Memorial Hospital, in 2014, HSHS St. Clare Memorial Hospital became the fourteenth hospital in Hospital Sisters Health System. As an affiliate of Hospital Sisters Health System, we draw on the history of St. Francis of Assisi as we move to continue serving the health care needs of our area in Christ’s healing ministry, caring for all people. For more information about St. Clare, visit www.stclarememorial.org.

About Hospital Sisters Health System

Hospital Sisters Health System’s (HSHS) mission is to reveal and embody Christ’s healing love for all people through our high quality, Franciscan health care ministry. HSHS provides state-of-the-art health care to our patients and is dedicated to serving all people, especially the most vulnerable, at each of our 15 Local Systems and physician practices in Illinois (Breese, Decatur, Effingham, Greenville, Highland, Litchfield, O’Fallon, Shelbyville and Springfield) and Wisconsin (Chippewa Falls, Eau Claire, Oconto Falls, Sheboygan, and two in Green Bay). HSHS is sponsored by Hospital Sisters Ministries. For more information about HSHS, visit www.hshs.org.  For more information about Hospital Sisters of St. Francis, visit www.hospitalsisters.org.

About Prevea Health

Founded in Green Bay, Wis. in 1996, Prevea Health is a health care organization that provides high-quality, primary and specialty health care in 80+ locations across Northern, Eastern and Western Wisconsin in clinic and hospital settings. It is partnered with six Hospital Sisters Health System (HSHS) hospitals across Wisconsin to provide patients a system of highly-coordinated care, close to home: HSHS St. Vincent Hospital and HSHS St. Mary’s Hospital Medical Center in Green Bay; HSHS St. Nicholas Hospital in Sheboygan; HSHS St. Clare Memorial Hospital in Oconto Falls; HSHS Sacred Heart Hospital in Eau Claire; and HSHS St. Joseph’s Hospital in Chippewa Falls. For more information, visit www.prevea.com.