Just north of Interstate 10, and ninety minutes away from Pensacola to the west and Tallahassee to the east you’ll find Bonifay, Florida. This small community of 2,700 is the county seat for Holmes County, and like many other rural communities of its size, the people here are facing – and meeting – the economic challenges and realities of rural life.

One of the long-standing challenges in rural America is access to health care, and a small critical access facility in Bonifay is making a difference with a little help from USDA Rural Development.

Doctors Memorial Hospital, a small 20-bed critical access facility built in 2008, serves this rural community. Despite its size, it fulfills a vital need in the community. Through funding provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development, Doctors Memorial has improved its patient services, resulting in better healthcare outcomes for Holmes County citizens. The hospital now provides patient transport services, has modernized its medical diagnosis equipment, and is constructing a new medical office building.

Doctors Memorial Hospital received a $40,100 grant from USDA Rural Development's Community Facilities Grant Programs to purchase a medical transportation van. Patient transportation is a crucial part of healthcare for many, especially the elderly. The hospital's Chief Administrator, JoAnn Baker, is often asked if the hospital picks up patients. Patients comment that when emergency services (EMS) bring them to the hospital, they can't get home after discharge. JoAnn now tells patients, “We will come and get you and take you home." "It has been a real good thing for the community because we have a lot of elderly patients, and we have transportation issues in Holmes County.” Now she can say, "When they come to the hospital, even by EMS, we're able to take them back home. We go as far as Panama City to pick up patients that come here for care."

Additional funding included a $75,000 Community Facilities Grant, from USDA to help purchase a nuclear medicine camera, ultrasound equipment, and security alarm system. Sarah Roberts, a Nuclear Medicine Technologist, stated, "We can perform diagnostic testing on patients to assess bodily functions and to diagnose and treat disease. Having this capability at this rural hospital allows us to expand to a wider range of patients to get the testing they need. So, bringing it closer to patients helps them. We also have other modalities other than nuclear medicine that are funded by the USDA. We have MRI, CT scan, ultrasound, mammography, X-ray, and fluoroscopy. We've gotten a lot from USDA because that's where we found we've been more successful."

To enhance healthcare outcomes, treat patients more effectively and efficiently and serve the unmet needs of Holmes County, Doctors Memorial applied for a $1,000,000 USDA Emergency Rural Health Care Grant. This funding was part of USDA's Emergency Rural Health Care Grant funds to enable rural health care services to be expanded. This grant will be used to construct a new 6,000-square-foot healthcare clinic near the existing hospital. The total cost of the project is $2,428,760, with the remaining funds from Florida Department of Health and the applicant's contribution. The facility will provide a higher level of care for residents and provide equitable access to patients without the need to travel to neighboring counties. The project is in a distressed community and will serve the unmet needs of the patients, help with Covid-19 and future pandemics and disasters.

The hospital worked with USDA's Rural Development staff to evaluate the facility's needs through the application submission process. Chief Administrator Baker stated, "I enjoy working with Chalice Honeycutt and Jeff Archer. Anytime something comes up that they think we might have an interest in that would help our rural hospital, they've always let me know and worked very closely with me. We've been very successful in obtaining funding for needed things at a rural hospital. It has really come in handy that we're able to offer better services to the citizens of Holmes County because of the USDA availability of funding."

USDA Rural Development continues to collaborate with rural communities such as Doctors Memorial to improve rural community facilities through its programs. For information about Rural Development programs, visit USDA Rural Development. For more photos and videos, go to https://www.flickr.com/photos/usdagov/albums/72177720317070979/