This Community Health Needs Assessment is responsive to the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and subsequent IRS regulation asking hospitals to assess health needs of their communities, prioritize those needs and implement effective responses to address them. The selected health needs should be an outcome of community discussion and reflect needs that the community perceives.

Cook Hospital is a rural critical access hospital district in northern St. Louis county, north central Minnesota. It employs about 135 people and is a major employer in the area. Cook Hospital offers a wide range of services including 24-hour emergency room service, radiology, pharmacy, laboratory, physical therapy, occupational therapy, outpatient surgery center, telemedicine, and speech therapy.   Adjacent to the hospital is the Scenic River’s Health Service Clinic, a Federal Qualified Healthcare Center, which provides three primary care physicians, five nurse practitioners, and an obstetrician-gynecologist with providing 24-hour emergency room coverage, inpatient services and outpatient surgery services. 

As a hospital district, Cook Hospital is governed by a board of fifteen district members designated by the voters of each township and the cities of Cook and Orr and receives a levy from residents within the district, and is currently one of only six independent hospital districts within Minnesota.

The 2021 Community Health Needs Assessment is available for viewing here: Cook Hospital Community Needs Survey

Your comments on this report are welcome. Please send them to info@cookhospital.org with “CHNA comments” in the subject line.