Sanford Luverne Medical Center

Sanford Luverne Medical Center is a 25-bed critical access hospital located in Luverne, Minnesota. They are dedicated to the work of health and healing and strive to provide exceptional care to all they serve.

In 2015, the hospital began participating in Rural Health Innovation’s Integrative Behavioral Health Program funded by the Minnesota Department of Health, Office of Rural Health and Primary Care.

Sanford Luverne Medical Center identified key partners and convened a multi-organizational community mental health task force who identified the need for a vehicle for sharing patient information across agencies; the need for more mental health providers; the need for increased community education about resources and behavioral health; and the need for a model from early detection of behavioral health issues as barriers in meeting their population’s behavioral health needs.

 Strategic Objectives 

• Understand regulatory requirements
• Create education and training plan
• Utilize technology to enhance communication and access
• Optimize care coordination across continuum
• Create smoother connection of available resources

Sanford Luverne Medical Center focused on improving continuity in care and prevention to decrease the number of patients requiring admission to an inpatient setting while increasing “discharge to home.” Measurable outcomes indicate positive results.

Top Accomplishments 

• Improved communication among agencies through the creation of a universal release of information
• Upgrade in suicide screening—identify patients who are at risk and digging deeper into issues
• Better prevention of acute situations by:    - Working with cardiac rehab patients to assess behavioral health issues and provide           stress management to them    - Providing system-wide education to nurses around assessment