Rural Hospitals

The agreement will let the hospital that serves a predominantly rural area have access to the resources of a major city’s health care system without surrendering local control.

Noble Health, a three-year-old private equity-backed startup, acquired Audrain and nearby Callaway Community Hospital during the coronavirus pandemic. Facing staggering debt, lawsuits and two federal investigations, it sold the hospitals to a Texas-based Platinum Health Systems. This month, Platinum Health told hospital workers they no longer had jobs.

The U.S. Labor Department investigates Noble Health after former employees of its shuttered Missouri hospitals say the private equity-backed owner took money from their paychecks and then failed to fund their insurance coverage.

Dr. Joe Corrado saw his hospital being whittled away. Supplies for surgery disappeared, crucial medicines went unstocked, paychecks never came, he said. Just days before Noble suspended operations, he told management: “We don’t have the ability to do the things we need to take care of patients.”

A new report found the coronavirus pandemic exacerbated Illinois' rural health worker shortage.

Several small hospitals in the region report they’ve spent more time trying to find hospitals that can treat treat their sickest patients, particularly those at risk for COVID-19.

About three-quarters of Kansas and Missouri counties lack intensive care units, forcing critically ill rural patients to seek care in major cities.

Hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19 are on the rise in Missouri, especially in parts of the outstate with fewer hospital resources.

The VA said not enough of Dent County's 1,000-plus veterans chose the clinic for health care, and without a certain number of patients, it was not viable to stay open.

Stroke patients in rural hospitals fare far worse than urban patients, according to new research from Washington University.Based on the records of nearly…