Jefferson Community Health Center

HRV invested $9,000,000 in State and Federal New Markets Tax Credits (“NMTCs”) for the expansion of Jefferson Community Health and Life, a 58-year old Critical Access Hospital located in rural Fairbury, NE, to include 23 exam rooms, 2 special procedure rooms, a radiology room, and a specialty room for COVID and flu patients.

In Nebraska, nearly 30 percent of the state’s population resides in rural areas like Fairbury and its surrounding communities. JCH&L faces a unique combination of rural forces not faced by their urban healthcare peers, such as continuing health provider shortages, limited access to specialty care, disparate socioeconomic factors, and higher rates of obesity, hypertension, suicide, and death by serious injury.

Jefferson Community Health & Life was established in 1963 as Jefferson County Memorial Hospital and Nursing Home, the first hospital/nursing home combination in the state of Nebraska. The facility has grown over the years, adding a home health agency in 1984, a community wellness center in 1996, expanding outpatient services throughout the years, and adding the Fairbury Clinic in 2016, and opened the Plymouth Clinic in 2018. Through its 50-plus-year history, Jefferson Community Health & Life has been very active and involved in its community, and has worked to promote health and wellness. Currently 20 visiting specialists utilize this space each month, allowing area residents the opportunity to receive specialty care locally.

This expansion will create 10 new full-time jobs ranging from nursing and support staff and laboratory technicians.