Rolla, Salem Hospitals Selected For Pilot Rural Project

Salem Memorial District Hospital and Phelps Health in Rolla are two of six hospitals in Missouri that have been selected to participate in Missouri’s Transformation of Rural Community Health (ToRCH) pilot project. 

Other hospitals that will participate are Golden Valley Memorial Healthcare in Clinton, Bothwell Regional Health Center in Sedalia, Citizens Memorial Hospital in Bolivar and Ray County Memorial Hospital in Richmond.

ToRCH will enable hospitals to act as community hubs, collaborating with partners to address Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) and reduce preventable hospital admissions and emergency department visits.

The Missouri Department of Social Services says the program will incentivize improved population health through:

Lower rates of avoidable hospitalization, including readmissions;

-Decreased rates of avoidable emergency department use; and,

-Reduce all-cause hospital utilization for all Medicaid recipients in the community.

ToRCH will address the “upstream” causes of poor health through integrating social care supports into clinical care.

DSS received a waiver from the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in March to allow full deployment of ToRCH.

ToRCh was designed and developed in 2021.