Phelps Health

Smaller rural hospitals are closing or in danger of shutting down, regional facilities like Phelps Health are looking to expand to pick up the slack.

The hospital’s involvement is a partial lifeline to the facility that has faced financial struggles, but questions about the aquatics area remain.

The statewide network will provide an on-call certified nurse examiner to support workers at other hospitals through videoconferencing during sexual assault forensic exams.

The goal is for the new facility to offer more specialty medical services and reduce travel times for veterans who would have to go to St. Louis or Columbia.

A new $8 million EMS base will consolidate ambulance and helicopter services in Rolla with the goal of better serving the region that is seeing fewer health care providers.

Officials with Phelps Health say the agreement will help keep the Salem hospital afloat and maintain services in a region without many health services.

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.

A report tracking small cities that aren’t part of metropolitan areas shows Rolla and Hannibal did much better economically than the national average.

Missouri is among the worst states in the nation in percentage of population vaccinated, but Gov. Mike Parson said that could turn around soon.

It's been two weeks since coronavirus vaccines arrived in Missouri's two largest metro areas. Now they are starting to arrive in smaller cities.