Author: Stephany Chalberg

The American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines^® – Stroke Rural Recognition Silver award recognizes efforts to address the unique health needs of rural communities

RAPID CITY, SD (Aug. 25, 2026) — People who live in rural communities live an average of three years fewer than urban counterparts and have a 40% higher likelihood of developing heart disease and face a 30% increased risk for stroke mortality, according to an American Heart Association’s presidential advisory on rural health. Monument Health is committed to changing that.

For its efforts to optimize stroke care and reduce gaps in rural health outcomes, Monument Health has received the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines^® – Stroke Rural Recognition Silver award.

Stroke is the No. 4 cause of death and a leading cause of disability in the U.S, according to the American Heart Association’s 2026 Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics Report. A stroke occurs when a blood vessel supplying the brain is blocked by a clot or ruptures, preventing blood and oxygen from reaching brain tissue. When this happens, brain cells begin to die. Early detection and rapid treatment are critical to improving survival, minimizing disability and supporting faster recovery. 

The American Heart Association recognizes the importance of health care services provided to people living in rural areas by rural hospitals that play a vital role in initiation of timely evidence-based care. For that reason, all rural hospitals participating in Get With The Guidelines – Stroke are eligible to receive award recognition based on a unique methodology focused on early acute stroke performance metrics.

“We are proud that our teams at Monument Health are being recognized for the important work we do every day to improve the lives of people in Western South Dakota who are affected by stroke, giving them the best possible chance of recovery and survival,” said Thomas Worsley, Monument Health President of Spearfish Hospital and Hills Markets. “With hospitals in rural communities, we face challenges such as extended interfacility transportation times and limited staffing resources. We have made it a priority to ensure those challenges never compromise the standard of care our stroke patients receive. Rural communities deserve high-quality stroke care. I’m proud of our team’s commitment to stroke care excellence and this achievement.”

This recognition goes to hospitals for their commitment to acute stroke care excellence, demonstrated through performance on guideline-directed measures including intravenous thrombolytic therapy, timely hospital inter-facility transfer, dysphagia screening, symptom timeline and deficit assessment documentation, emergency medical services communication, brain imaging and stroke expert consultation.

“Patients and health care professionals in Western South Dakota face unique health care challenges and opportunities,” said Karen E. Joynt Maddox, M.D., MPH, chair of the American Heart Association Quality Oversight Committee and co-author on the Association’s advisory on rural health. “Monument Health has advanced the important work of improving care for all Americans, regardless of where they live.”

###

About Monument Health

Headquartered in Rapid City, S.D., Monument Health is a community-based health care system with a mission to make a difference, every day. The system offers care in 31 medical specialties and serves 14 communities across western South Dakota and in eastern Wyoming. With over 6,300 physicians and caregivers, Monument Health is composed of 5 hospitals and more than 40 medical clinics and specialty centers. Monument Health is a member of the Mayo Clinic Care Network.

About Get With The Guidelines^®

Get With The Guidelines^® is the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s hospital-based quality improvement program that provides hospitals with the latest research-based guidelines. Developed with the goal of saving lives and hastening recovery, Get With The Guidelines has touched the lives of more than 18 million patients since 2001. For more information, visit heart.org.

RAPID CITY, S.D. (Aug. 20, 2026) — Monument Health announced the opening of a two-bed Epilepsy Monitoring Unit (EMU) at Rapid City Hospital. The unit, which began seeing patients in February 2026, is the first of its kind in the region and represents a significant investment in neurological care for communities across western South Dakota and eastern Wyoming.

Prior to this service, patients requiring epilepsy monitoring were referred to facilities in Minnesota or Colorado. The EMU allows those patients to receive that care within the Monument Health network, staying close to home and connected to the physicians and care teams they already know and trust. 

“This has been a two-year effort by multiple team members to bring something our patients genuinely needed,” said Kim York, Director of Neuroscience at Monument Health. “The fact that we can now keep these patients in their community, with their families, makes a real difference in their experience and their outcomes.”

The EMU offers five-day elective admissions during which patients are monitored using an electroencephalogram, or EEG. The unit serves patients who are seeking a diagnosis for unexplained episodes, those already living with epilepsy who may benefit from medication adjustments, and individuals whose symptoms may not be epileptic in origin. Monument Health expects to serve at least 24 to 30 patients per year through the program.

“This is such an important diagnostic and management tool,” said Donald Barr, M.D., epileptologist and Neurology Section Chief at Monument Health. “If we identify that someone is having more frequent seizures, we can optimize their medications and improve their quality of life. And for patients whose episodes turn out not to be epileptic, we can connect them with the right treatment entirely. It can be a game changer, not just for the patient, but for their family.”

About Monument Health

Headquartered in Rapid City, S.D., Monument Health is a community-based health care system with a mission to make a difference, every day. The system offers care in 31 medical specialties and serves 14 communities across western South Dakota and in eastern Wyoming. With over 6,300 physicians and caregivers, Monument Health is composed of 5 hospitals and more than 40 medical clinics and specialty centers. Monument Health is a member of the Mayo Clinic Care Network.

###

RAPID CITY, SD (Aug. 18, 2026) — Monument Health Rapid City Hospital has earned the Leapfrog Full Transparency Badge, recognizing the hospital’s commitment to publicly reporting information about patient safety and quality through the annual Leapfrog Hospital Survey.

The Full Transparency Badge is awarded to hospitals that complete, affirm, and submit all sections of the Leapfrog Hospital Survey, one of the nation’s leading voluntary reporting programs focused on patient safety, quality, and transparency.

“Earning the Full Transparency Badge reflects our commitment to openness with the patients and families we serve,” said Jill Tice, Monument Health Vice President of Quality, Safety and Risk Management. “When we fully participate in the Leapfrog Hospital Survey, we are giving our community the information they need to make confident decisions about their care, and holding ourselves accountable to the highest standard along the way.” 

“Earning the Full Transparency Badge reflects our commitment to openness with the patients and families we serve,” said Jill Tice, vice president of quality, safety and risk management at Monument Health. “When we fully participate in the Leapfrog Hospital Survey, we are giving our community the information they need to make confident decisions about their care, and holding ourselves accountable to the highest standard along the way.” 

“We applaud Monument Health Rapid City Hospital for its commitment to transparency,” said Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group. “Transparency is one of the most powerful drivers of improvement in health care. By fully participating in the Leapfrog Hospital Survey, Monument Health is helping patients and families access meaningful information about the safety and quality of their care.”

The Leapfrog Full Transparency Badge appears on Leapfrog’s public ratings website and identifies hospitals that have committed to openly sharing information about their performance.

For more information about Monument Health, visit www.monument.health. 

About Monument Health

Headquartered in Rapid City, S.D., Monument Health is a community-based health care system with a mission to make a difference, every day. The system offers care in 31 medical specialties and serves 14 communities across western South Dakota and in eastern Wyoming. With over 6,300 physicians and caregivers, Monument Health is composed of 5 hospitals and more than 40 medical clinics and specialty centers. Monument Health is a member of the Mayo Clinic Care Network.

About The Leapfrog Group
Founded in 2000 by large employers and other purchasers, The Leapfrog Group is an independent national nonprofit organization driving a movement for patient safety and transparency. Leapfrog collects, analyzes, and publicly reports data on hospital and ambulatory surgery center performance to help patients, purchasers, and other stakeholders make informed health care decisions. Leapfrog’s flagship initiatives include the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade, a biannual letter grade focused exclusively on hospital safety, and the Leapfrog Hospital Survey, a voluntary survey that publicly reports hospital performance on patient safety and quality measures. Leapfrog’s ratings and reports are peer-reviewed, fully transparent and free to the public. For more from Leapfrog, follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram and sign up for our newsletter. 

###

RAPID CITY, S.D. (Aug. 4, 2026) – As riders roll into the Black Hills for the 86th Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, Monument Health enters this year’s event with more capacity than ever to care for the region’s Rally visitors and residents, having added three new access points across the Rapid City area over the past year.

The Monument Health Emergency Services and Medical Campus at Mall Drive, open for its first Rally season, offers 24-hour emergency care along the Interstate 90 corridor, giving Rally travelers immediate access to care without needing to reach Rapid City Hospital. Rapid Valley Clinic, open since last September, and Box Elder Clinic, now heading into its second Rally season, provide urgent and primary care for non-emergency needs closer to where people are staying and riding.

The Monument Health Daily Motorcycle Rally Tally from Monument Health hospitals in Custer, Lead-Deadwood, Rapid City, Spearfish and Sturgis will begin on Saturday, Aug. 8. The information will be updated each morning until Sunday, Aug. 16. The report will show the number of Rally-related inpatients (those hospitalized) on the morning posted, and emergency room (ER) visits for a 24-hour period by facility.  

Monument Health begins preparations for the Rally up to a year in advance, both as a system and in cooperation with local, regional and state authorities. The daily snapshots posted on the Monument Health website provide an informative perspective as to the Rally’s impact on the region’s health care facilities.

The Christian Motorcycle Association (CMA) will again be providing assistance during the 2026 Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. The CMA volunteers are available to assist patients and families impacted by injury during the Rally starting Aug. 10 through Aug. 14. These volunteers help collect belongings of those injured, assist in returning a motorcycle of the injured back to their home, help patients’ families with travel and lodging and offer companionship to bikers who may require hospitalization. 

About Monument Health

Headquartered in Rapid City, S.D., Monument Health is a community-based health care system with a mission to make a difference, every day. The system offers care in 31 medical specialties and serves 14 communities across western South Dakota and in eastern Wyoming. With over 6,300 physicians and caregivers, Monument Health is composed of 5 hospitals and more than 40 medical clinics and specialty centers. Monument Health is a member of the Mayo Clinic Care Network.

GRADUATING CLASS OF 2026: Kayden A. Carter, M.D., Kenneth R. Fuller, D.O.,* Yuseph A. Khan, M.D., Matthew M. Rakaba, D.O.,* Allen A. Wellman, M.D.

*Chief Resident

RAPID CITY, S.D. (July 2, 2026) – Monument Health announced that five physicians graduated from the Rapid City Hospital Family Medicine Residency Program on June 30. 

Each year the Family Medicine Residency Program accepts medical school graduates into a three-year program of training in a variety of family medicine roles with an emphasis on rural health care. This year’s graduates were honored at a ceremony at The Monument in Rapid City.

The program is designed to recruit and train medical school graduates to specialize in family medicine, preparing them to understand the dynamics of rural health care. Family physicians are among the only specialists qualified to treat most ailments and provide comprehensive health care for people of all ages, from newborns to seniors. 

This year’s graduates include:

• Kayden A. Carter, M.D.
• Yuseph A. Khan, M.D.
• Matthew M. Rakaba, D.O.
• Allen A. Wellman, M.D.
• Kenneth R. Fuller, D.O.

Monument Health is proud to welcome Drs. Wellman and Fuller to the full-time staff. Dr. Fuller will be at Monument Health Sturgis Hospital and Clinic providing care in the Emergency Department as well as inpatient and outpatient services. To schedule with Dr. Fuller, call (605) 720-2600. Dr. Wellman will join Monument Health Custer Clinic and is currently accepting new patients. To schedule with Dr. Wellman, call (605) 673-9400.

Monument Health also welcomes six incoming residents who will begin their training with the Family Medicine Residency Program this year: Alyssa Armsbury, D.O., Cheyanne Eisenmann, D.O., W. Bridger Everett, D.O., Jacob Heinen, D.O., Berit Preston, D.O., and Rebecca Solloway, M.D.

For more information about the Family Medicine Residency Program and Clinic, or to visit the clinic, call 605-755-4060. Same-day appointments are available at the FMR Clinic; call to schedule.

About Monument Health

Headquartered in Rapid City, S.D., Monument Health is a community-based health care system with a mission to make a difference, every day. The system offers care in 31 medical specialties and serves 14 communities across western South Dakota and in eastern Wyoming. With over 6,300 physicians and caregivers, Monument Health is composed of 5 hospitals and more than 40 medical clinics and specialty centers. Monument Health is a member of the Mayo Clinic Care Network.

###

MEDIA CONTACT:

Stephany Chalberg

Manager of Public Relations

Monument Health

605-755-9086

schalberg@monument.health

SPEARFISH, S.D. — Felicia Beltman, AuD, an audiologist at Monument Health Spearfish Clinic on North Avenue, has earned Board Certification in Pediatric Audiology (BC-PA) from the American Board of Audiology, one of few certified specialists in the region to hold the distinction.

Dr. Beltman earned the certification after passing the Pediatric Audiology Specialty Certification (PASC) examination. The credential recognizes advanced expertise in diagnosing and treating hearing and balance conditions in infants and children, an area that requires specialized training beyond general audiology practice.

Dr. Beltman, who was born and raised in Rapid City, first saw the need for this care firsthand as a graduate student.

“When I went to graduate school in Vermillion and learned we would be doing outreach in Rapid City, where I was born and raised, as part of our clinic rotation because there was a lack of access to pediatric audiology care, this lit a desire in me to establish back in the area and provide the gap in care that was so very needed for pediatrics and families,” Dr. Beltman said.

Before this level of care was available locally, families often traveled to Denver or Sioux Falls for pediatric audiology services, trips of five to seven hours each way that frequently led to delayed diagnosis, delayed treatment or children lost to follow-up altogether.

“With care closer to home, we are seeing more kids get the timely care they need,” Dr. Beltman said. “Hearing loss that occurs in pediatrics, especially before language is developed, and goes untreated puts a child at high risk of speech and language delays, educational delays and mental health challenges. Access to high level care plays an important role in the overall development of children and the lifelong trajectory of children with hearing loss.”

With very few board certified pediatric audiologists in the region, Dr. Beltman’s certification gives families across the Monument Health service area direct access to specialized pediatric hearing care closer to home.

Board Certification in Pediatric Audiology requires passing a rigorous specialty examination and meeting ongoing continuing education requirements, including regular training in pediatric audiology and professional ethics, to maintain the credential.

About Monument Health

Headquartered in Rapid City, S.D., Monument Health is a community-based health care system with a mission to make a difference, every day. The system offers care in 31 medical specialties and serves 14 communities across western South Dakota and in eastern Wyoming. With over 6,300 physicians and caregivers, Monument Health is composed of 5 hospitals and more than 40 medical clinics and specialty centers. Monument Health is a member of the Mayo Clinic Care Network.

###

RAPID CITY, S.D. – Monument Health announced it has been awarded Association for the Accreditation of Human Research Protection Programs (AAHRPP) reaccreditation, a distinction held since 2013. This achievement recognizes a continued commitment to strong human research protections and ethical, high-quality research practices. Monument Health is one of only two facilities in South Dakota with AAHRPP accreditation.

“This achievement reflects the important work taking place across our organization to protect individuals who participate in research, strengthen public trust and support excellence in the research process,” said Nancy Klunder, Monument Health Vice President of Corporate Responsibility. 

To earn and maintain accreditation, organizations must demonstrate that they adhere to AAHRPP’s high standards for research. These include incorporating extensive safeguards throughout their research operation and committing to a culture of continuous improvement. In a global, collaborative research environment, accreditation status can provide added assurance and a competitive edge. 

As an independent, nonprofit accrediting body, AAHRPP uses a voluntary, peer-driven, educational model to assess whether Human Research Protection Programs meet rigorous standards for quality and participant protection. Accreditation signals that an organization has the infrastructure, policies, procedures and practices needed to support sound research and continuous improvement. AAHRPP-accredited organizations also tend to have more streamlined processes, stronger recordkeeping and a reduced risk of costly shutdowns or problematic inspections.

About Monument Health

Headquartered in Rapid City, S.D., Monument Health is a community-based health care system with a mission to make a difference, every day. The system offers care in 31 medical specialties and serves 14 communities across western South Dakota and in eastern Wyoming. With over 6,300 physicians and caregivers, Monument Health is composed of 5 hospitals and more than 40 medical clinics and specialty centers. Monument Health is a member of the Mayo Clinic Care Network.

###

RAPID CITY, S.D. (July 1, 2026) – Monument Health today announced it will lease the Gillette, Wyo., clinic and equipment formerly home to Hoskinson Health & Wellness Clinic, operating a multi-specialty clinic and employing providers and staff.

The announcement follows Hoskinson’s decision to cease operations. Monument Health and the Hoskinson team are working together to minimize any disruption to patient care as the transition progresses.

“From the beginning, our goal was to bring Mayo Clinic-level care to the people of Gillette. This transition to a Mayo Clinic Care Network member means that vision is now a reality. We are grateful to Monument Health for stepping in and making sure this community continues to have access to the care it deserves,” said the Hoskinson Family.

As a member of the Mayo Clinic Care Network, Monument Health providers have direct access to Mayo Clinic expertise and resources, a connection that now extends to the Gillette community.

A finalized list of providers will be shared as transition details are confirmed. Patients are encouraged to continue scheduling appointments as normal.

“The people of Gillette deserve access to high-quality care close to home, and that is exactly what this clinic has provided,” said Paulette Davidson, President and CEO of Monument Health. “We are proud to expand our presence into eastern Wyoming and committed to making sure these patients continue to have a place to go for the care they need.”

The clinic is staffed by 15 physicians and a full support team and operates from a state-of-the-art facility, now part of Monument Health’s regional system spanning 31 specialties, 5 hospitals and more than 40 clinics and specialty centers across western South Dakota and eastern Wyoming.

An official opening date will be shared as details are finalized.

About Monument Health

Headquartered in Rapid City, S.D., Monument Health is a community-based health care system with a mission to make a difference, every day. The system offers care in 31 medical specialties and serves 14 communities across western South Dakota and eastern Wyoming. With more than 6,300 physicians and caregivers, Monument Health is composed of 5 hospitals and more than 40 medical clinics and specialty centers. Monument Health is a member of the Mayo Clinic Care Network.

About Hoskinson Health & Wellness Clinic

Hoskinson Health & Wellness Clinic is a full-service primary care and wellness clinic in Gillette, Wyoming, founded by the Hoskinson family with a commitment to bringing advanced, preventive care to the region. The clinic pairs evidence-based medicine with a patient-centered approach, emphasizing trust, collaboration and the belief that patients who are active partners in their health achieve better outcomes. Hoskinson Health offers primary care, healing therapy and wellness services to Gillette and the surrounding communities.

###