DARLINGTON — Recently, the Lafayette County Hospital Committee asked hospital leaders to provide county residents with information about the community stakeholder engagement initiatives associated with Lafayette County Thrive learning and listening sessions and Healthier Lafayette County. To provide development and support for these initiatives that began in 2020, MHLC engaged Impact! Communications, Inc., (Impact), a nationally recognized rural health strategy and communications firm.

Hospital CEO Kathy Kuepers said she’s pleased that some patients have noticed a change in communicating. “That’s great, because we’ve been very intentional in our efforts to respond to community and employee feedback to increase our reach across the county,” Kuepers said.

Impact! has worked with rural hospitals, health clinics, and organizations for nearly 30 years. Founder and CEO Michelle Rathman is a rural health advocate who focuses on preventing rural hospital closures and helping rural health organizations decrease outmigration, advance internal and external communication, and develop meaningful stakeholder engagement. 

“When we embarked on the journey to explore the feasibility of a replacement hospital, we considered how critical it was for us to put much more focus on communication and stakeholder engagement. This project is mission-critical and the largest one we’ve undertaken. It was clear to us how essential communication is to our success moving forward,” said Kuepers.

Impact’s work with MHLC includes providing in-depth advisory services, content development, graphic design, social media, and website support. They also helped MHLC launch its official Walk with a Doc Chapter and the Living Healthier community newsletter, with plans to launch other stakeholder programs with local schools and businesses to promote wellness and health literacy. In addition, Impact was instrumental in identifying a resource to help the county establish its EMS agency, bringing the Paramedic Foundation to Lafayette County.

“As with our contracted services, MHLC works to establish relationships with known and trusted entities to provide expertise on a variety of services where we don’t have a person on staff with the needed expertise,” said Molly Wiegel, COO. 

During a recent Lafayette County Thrive meeting, MHLC outlined a full list of organizations it contracts with to provide services that support its operations. 

“We are providing this information to our community in our ongoing commitment to transparency. Having the expertise to help strengthen and grow MHLC is a positive for us, and we’re grateful to have a rural-health-specific communications team working with us,” said Wiegel.