{"id":15587,"date":"2025-11-21T23:25:49","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T06:25:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/rural-health-day-celebrated-at-southwest-memorial-hospital\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T21:49:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:49:18","slug":"rural-health-day-celebrated-at-southwest-memorial-hospital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/rural-health-day-celebrated-at-southwest-memorial-hospital\/","title":{"rendered":"Rural health day celebrated at Southwest Memorial Hospital"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Southwest
Southwest Health System celebrates National Rural Health Day with the Colorado Rural Health Center. The center serves both as the State Office of Rural Health and State Rural Health Association. (Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Officials with the Colorado Rural Health Center visited Cortez on Thursday for National Rural Health Day at Southwest Memorial Hospital.<\/p>\n

\u201cEach year on National Rural Health Day, we take some time to pause and acknowledge how important rural health care facilities are to communities across rural and frontier Colorado,\u201d CRHC CEO Michelle Mills said in a news release after the luncheon.<\/p>\n

The National Organization of State Offices of Rural Health has observed the day on the third Thursday of November since 2011. Colorado\u2019s State Office of Rural Health since 1991, the Rural Health Center expressed appreciation for Southwest Health System.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re honored today to have CRHC recognizing the good work at Southwest Health System and the work we do every day to care for people,\u201d said Southwest Health System CEO Joe Theine.<\/p>\n

Mills also read a proclamation<\/a> signed by Gov. Jared Polis in 2024, recognizing the day. As the proclamation says, 97% of U.S. land is rural, occupied by 66 million people, or 20% of the nation\u2019s population.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs stated in the governor\u2019s proclamation, rural health care providers and staff are the backbone of medical care in our community,\u201d said Lisa Gates, Southwest Health System chief nursing officer.<\/p>\n

In October, Southwest Memorial Hospital received 5-star ratings<\/a> in nurse communication and cleanliness from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, according to Becker\u2019s Hospital Review. <\/em><\/p>\n

The hospital and its affiliated medical sites provide a resource for Montezuma County\u2019s rural residents.<\/p>\n

Southwest Health System \u2013 which includes the hospital on North Mildred Road, a clinic<\/a> in Mancos and one at Montezuma-Cortez High School \u2013 recorded tens of thousands of patient visits last year, according to its latest annual report<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Colorado Rural Health Office honors state\u2019s rural facilities <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15588,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29,210,538],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-15587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-southwest-health-system","tag-southwest-memorial-hospital"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15587"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19736,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15587\/revisions\/19736"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15587"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=15587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}