By Adam Stewart
From the Newsroom
I had the opportunity last Thursday and Friday to sit in on presentations at the Rural Innovation Potluck hosted by Hutchinson Regional Healthcare System. The event brought together healthcare organizations from across the country to talk about what is working in recruiting and retaining healthcare workers.
Finding and keeping good workers is tremendously important, both for the viability of hospitals, medical clinics, and other healthcare organizations and for the availability and quality of care that patients receive. It is an issue that is worth people traveling from all corners of the country to discuss the steps that are working for them and might work for others.
It was great to hear how different organizations were addressing workforce issues and what the results have been like. I’m hopeful that the exchange of ideas will pay off for some of the organizations that were present.
On Tuesday, I covered a Hutchinson Planning Commission meeting where commissioners voted to recommend rezoning a property to allow farm animals, but with a protective overlay district to limit the kinds and numbers of farm animals.
It is an interesting way to develop more granular solutions to zoning questions in town. There are dramatically more possible sets of circumstances than there are zoning districts in the city. It’s unrealistic to think the city could have a premade zoning solution for every possible set of circumstances, but protective overlay districts allow the city to tailor solutions where appropriate.
Hutchinson probably doesn’t need a specific zoning district where residents can keep goats, sheep, and horses but not cattle. But protective overlay districts give the city the ability to allow reasonable uses in special cases while still protecting the interests of nearby residents and property owners, and without turning Chapter 27 of the city code into “War and Peace.”
Protective overlay districts aren’t entirely new, but Hutchinson hadn’t used them much in the past, and this is the third that Planning Commission has recommended this year.
I’m not trying to say that rural healthcare workforce challenges and zoning for goats are similar at all, but this week, both are examples of local institutions trying to do things differently. They aren’t settling for same old, same old. A willingness to consider and try new approaches is a good sign. We can’t improve the way we do things without changing things, and incremental, experimental change is the way to make sustainable, durable improvements. Try out new things. See what works for you. Keep the parts that work. Repeat.
Adam Stewart is the assistant news editor of The Hutchinson Tribune. He can be reached at adam@hutchtribune.com.