EPHC Stronger Together Podcast

Sam Pennington, Chief Executive Officer of Garden County Health Services in Oshkosh, Nebraska, joins Stronger Together to talk through one of the hardest decisions a rural board can face. In February 2026, Garden County completed its conversion from a critical access hospital to a Rural Emergency Hospital, a designation that only became available to rural facilities in 2023 and that remains unfamiliar territory for most of the field. Sam describes the analysis that led his board to the decision, how the community responded to the loss of inpatient beds, what the REH model actually looks like in daily operation, and what he would tell any rural executive weighing the same path. The conversation is honest about both the opportunity and the tradeoffs.

Rural hospitals in this country are being asked to survive on shrinking margins, thinning workforces, and policy written by people who have never set foot in the communities they are deciding for. The Eastern Plains Healthcare Consortium exists because the hospitals of eastern Colorado concluded that competing with one another was a losing strategy.

In this first episode, EPHC President and CEO Zac D'Argonne and Vice President of Growth and Impact Jimmie Bailey III introduce the show and explain what it is for. They talk through why 2026 has been the hardest year either one has seen in rural health, what the Rural Health Transformation Program is actually delivering compared to what hospitals were promised, and how projected Medicaid reductions will land on facilities that have no cushion to absorb them. They also make the case that a rural hospital is rarely just a source of care. It is frequently the largest employer in its county, and when it closes, the town tends to follow within a decade.

Stronger Together is built for hospital leaders, board members, clinicians, policy staff, and anyone who wants to understand rural health from the inside rather than from a conference room in a metro area. Coming episodes will feature member hospital CEOs, regional and national best practice leaders, and voices from well outside Colorado.

If something is working at your hospital and other people ought to hear about it, write to us at [email protected]. We are looking for stories.

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