ROCHELLE — Rochelle Community Hospital recently added a new full-time nurse practitioner, Chenin Congrave Rude, to its Convenient Care department, which treats patients of all ages for minor illnesses and injuries with no appointment necessary. 

Congrave Rude has been an NP for several years and will offer care along with other part-time NPs and RCH Convenient Care staff. The department is open Monday-Friday 11-7 p.m. and Saturdays 9-5 p.m. and closed Sundays and holidays.

“When she came to us we were very excited to have her,” RCH Manager of Outpatient Services Tracey Busby said. “She fit right in with our organization and works really well with the team. She's been really well-received by patients. We had a need here in convenient care that she filled. We're always welcoming nurse practitioners but we wanted to try having one full-time NP so the community would have a familiar face when they came in. Chenin is here four days a week and that adds comfort to the community and people can come in and see the same person.”

RCH has run into some issues in the past with hours Convenient Care was able to be open due to staffing, but is now in “a good place”, Busby said, and conversations have been had about expanding hours during busier times like flu season. 

The need for RCH’s Convenient Care department has grown “exponentially” recently, Busby said, due to the community coming out of the pandemic, primary care physicians having less availability, and people not having primary care physicians. 

RCH’s Emergency Department has seen increased need as well, and Convenient Care has helped to ease that burden on the ED with being able to see patients that don’t need the higher level of care.

“We're kind of in the middle,” Busby said of Convenient Care. “We help family healthcare because they have a lot of patients that need to be seen by their primary care physicians and if they can't and it's just an illness-type thing, as well as taking the burden off the ED with easier patients that just want to be seen.”

RCH Convenient Care sees a “pretty large” contingency of people that don’t have a primary care doctor due to factors like insurance limitations, along with the City of Rochelle being a hub for truck drivers and contract construction workers that are too far away from their typical physicians.

Busby detailed the services that Convenient Care offers for the community.

“I'd like people to know that Convenient Care is for all those illnesses and injuries that are minor in nature,” Busby said. “It's not primary care, but it is care for people that just need to be seen or tested for illnesses or need X-rays for injuries. We're a minor illness and injury unit.”

The News-Leader met with Congrave Rude and members of the Convenient Care staff on July 30 including Medical Assistant Laura Delarosa, Receptionist Paulette Jurina and LPN Jim Miller and talked about what it’s like to service the community.  

Jurina said she’s been thankful for RCH’s new Convenient Care patient signup system where patients choose a timeframe to come in. That has helped to keep patients in order and feeling like their needs are being met. The new system has been received well by patients, Jurina said.

“And our patients enjoy having this service here in town,” Jurina said. “They like that they don't have to drive to Dixon, Sycamore or Rockford. We hear that a lot.”

Congrave

Rude said the Convenient Care department is in “a good place” to meet the community’s needs. It offers all-at-once testing for COVID-19, flu and RSV which sets it apart from a standalone urgent care, she said. Patients only need to have their nose swabbed once and they can find out results right away. 

Busby praised the Convenient Care staff for its work outside of seeing patients including cleaning rooms, stocking, transporting patients, ordering medication, making phone calls and referrals, and charting. 

Miller described the Convenient Care service that works to fill in the gaps for medical needs in the community.

“We're convenient for the patients,” Miller said. “If you go to an ER in Chicago, you could be there for two days. You're going to wait for a while in the ER and not every doctor can see patients the same day they ask. But we're here.”