Tri-County COVID Medical Center (TCMC) is a collaboration of five independent health care facilities located in Chippewa, Lac qui Parle, and Swift Counties. TCMC is a medical facility created to treat and care for patients  who have confirmation of COVID-19 virus and require hospitalization. It is set up to care for 11 patients initially but can quickly expand to 88 patients if needed.
 
TCMC is located in the vacant Prairie Correctional Facility in Appleton, Minnesota owned by CoreCivic. This space proved to be the best solution should there be a high volume of COVID-19 cases in the region requiring hospitalization as it already had medical and sanitation amenities needed to triage and treat patients quickly.
 
The facility is being provided to TCMC at no cost – meaning no financial benefit to CoreCivic. The facility will be staffed and managed by health care professionals, and CoreCivic will devote a small staff to maintain the building.
 
The creation of TCMC allows the small rural health care facilities to pool together the staff and resources needed to treat a potential outbreak of COVID-19 in our rural communities. Treating COVID-19 patients in one central location minimizes exposure to other patients. It allows the rural health care facilities to continue their daily operations of treating clinic and hospital patients while minimizing the possibility of exposure to COVID-19.
 
TCMC is the collaborative effort of Appleton Area Health (Appleton, MN), CCM Health (Montevideo, MN), Johnson Memorial Health Services (Dawson, MN), Madison Healthcare Services (Madison, MN), and Swift County Benson Health Services (Benson, MN). 

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