Coös County, NH- February 27,2026 – Leaders from North Country Healthcare (NCH) were selected to present at the 2026 American Hospital Association Rural Healthcare Leadership Conference. Held from February 8-11 in San Antonio, TX, the AHA conference gathered more than 1,300 rural health leaders committed to advancing rural health and providing quality care for patients and communities. Speakers featured top rural practitioners sharing actionable strategies and resources aimed at improving access to care, leveraging unique workforce approaches, and implementing digital technologies.
NCH Chief Quality Officer Bernie Adams, Chief Information Officer Darrell Bodnar, and Chief Nursing Officer Tiffany Haynes led a session titled “Achieving High Reliability and Just Culture in Rural Healthcare: A Practical Roadmap for Boards and Leaders.” Using the ongoing success of the bedside medication barcode scanning initiative as an example, Adams, Bodnar, and Haynes shared how NCH’s disciplined approach to strategic goal alignment, data transparency, and staff training led to measurable improvements in patient safety and care quality.
“In our journey to high reliability,” explains NCH Chief Nursing Officer Tiffany Haynes, “we are constantly evaluating how processes and systems affect both staff efficacy and patient care. We encourage every employee, at every level, to identify ways our processes might break down or lead to gaps in care. Just Culture means that we listen to and learn from those concerns, and to the people closest to the work.”
Using high reliability and just culture as guiding principles, NCH now has a bedside medication barcode scanning rate of 99.5% or higher, where the industry safety standard is 95%. This ensures that each time medication is administered at the bedside, both the medication barcode and the patient’s bracelet barcode are scanned, verifying that it is the right patient, the right medication, the right dose, the right route, and the right time.
“It was an honor to share NCH’s story with rural health leaders from across the nation,” says NCH Chief Quality Officer Bernie Adams, “and to demonstrate how at NCH, high reliability and just culture aren’t just buzzwords. These are commitments we have made to ensure consistent quality, clinical excellence, and equitable access to care across the North Country.”
