Since taking the helm of Monadnock Community Hospital three weeks ago, CEO Rich Scheinblum has been on the go.
“The first 90 days, I’m planning to just listen and support people, ” Scheinblum said. “People are going to be my focus. I’ve spent my time in the first two weeks trying to hit every department in the hospital, and we have over 50 departments.”
Scheinblum succeeded Cyndee McGuire, who retired in February after leading the community hospital for 12 years. Rochelle Sokol, who was previously director of finance, has succeeded Scheinblum in the CFO role.
“Rich has always been a big ’rounder,'” said Laura Gingras, vice president of philanthropy and community relations. “He knows people’s names, he knows their kids’ names, and people feel comfortable approaching him. I’ve always admired his leadership style.”
Scheinblum said his goal as CEO is to spend at least 50% of his time “outside his office.”
“By that, I mean walking around the hospital talking to people,” he said. “Everyone has a part to play here, and everyone’s job is important.”
Scheinblum has been at MCH for 26 years, 19 of those years as the CFO. A Connecticut native, Scheinblum’s first job in the Monadnock region was at Crotched Mountain Foundation in Greenfield, where he focused on reimbursement, fiscal analysis, operational redesign, and decision support in complex care environments. He obtained his Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of Connecticut and his Master’s in Business Administration from Plymouth State College.
Both Scheinblum’s sons were born at MCH and graduated from ConVal High School.
“My family is always my priority, and everyone’s family should be their priority. We will always do what we can to support that,” Scheinblum said.
Scheinblum says while he doesn’t plan any major changes in the immediate future, he is creating some new initiatives, particularly around staff retention.
“We’re trying some new things with employee engagement. We’re having once-a-month ‘Coffee Connections,’ where we’ll invite staff in just to talk and find out what’s going on. We’re going to start doing a once-a-month lunch with five employees and management, and I’ve scheduled our Employee Forums out for the next year. We will be kind of mapping things out for the next year, so people will know what to expect.”
With 650 full and part-time employees, MCH is one of the largest employers in the region. Scheinblum says employee retention is one of the biggest issues facing the hospital.
“My vision is to increase employee engagement, because one of the things we have problems with is recruiting,” he said. “Without employees, we can’t deliver care.”
Gingras said recruiting employees is a challenge for all healthcare organizations, with shortages of doctors, nurses and other staff prevalent across the industry and throughout New Hampshire.
“One of my favorite stories about Rich is that as we were coming out of COVID, we were desperately short of staff in Environmental Services, and Rich became fully certified in how to clean the Emergency Department, including the COVID rooms. Every Monday night, he would take a shift and clean the ED. It meant a lot to people,” Gingras said.
Scheinblum said he learned a lot from the experience of cleaning the ED for 18 months.
“Now I kind of have a better idea of how things work, from what I watched and observed while I was cleaning,” he said.
Scheinblum sees the hospital’s role in the community as “going beyond healthcare.”
“I believe that we’re vital to this community and that we should take an active role in more than just healthcare,” he said. “Without the hospital here, this community would be very different; people would have at least a 35-minute drive in any direction to get healthcare. I’d like to see us more active in working with the business community, working with nonprofits with which we have commonality, where we can help each other.”
Scheinblum also said there could be more potential for MCH to partner with Cheshire Hospital in Keene.
“There are some places where possibly we can work together. The goal is to get people the care they need locally,” he said
Scheinblum is proud of recent additions to the medical services MCH offers, including gastroenterology, cardiology, rheumatology, additional nurse practitioners, and new doctors at Jaffrey Family Medicine. The hospital also recently reorganized the Emergency Department.
“People will see familiar faces and also some new faces, including new doctors, in the Emergency Department,” he said.
Ongoing improvements to the hospital include the construction of a new lab and a women’s radiology center, and renovations at the MCH rehabilitation center and at Jaffrey Family Medicine.
Scheinblum says quality of care is one of his top priorities.
“Providing excellent, highest-level care, having high patient satisfaction, having access–that’s very important to me, and it’s something we’re going to be working on extensively. We’re here for the community, we’re not here for ourselves. The community deserves the highest quality services we can provide,” he said.
Scheinblum says MCH works closely with larger hospitals, including in Massachusetts, to connect patients with the care they need. He predicts that going forward, many more rural health services will be provided by telehealth, enabling patients to access routine care without traveling.
“There are a lot of services that people need, but in this small area, there is not enough need to be able to employ somebody full-time, and there are not necessarily enough resources out there to be able to attract someone. So when you talk about specialties like ear, nose and throat, mental health, neurology, even radiology — a lot of that could be going to telehealth in the future,” he said. “What we’re going to see is that going forward, a lot of care will go beyond the walls of your institution.”
On Dec. 29, 2025, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services awarded the state of New Hampshire $204 million as part of the Rural Health Transformation Program.
“I think we are going to see a lot of things change with rural healthcare in the next five to seven years,” Scheinblum said. “Part of the coming transformation in rural healthcare is that we are a little behind the times because we don’t have the capital to invest like other organizations do. We’ve been very fortunate with philanthropy here. We’ve had strong financials, which you don’t see with a lot of rural hospitals.”
He said the state’s Rural Health Transformation Program will impact MCH by supporting new programs.
“Some of the recipients of the grant have already been announced,” he said. “We haven’t seen the final document of how the state is going to distribute the funds, but we know they can’t be used to lower rates. These funds are not intended to prop up organizations that are failing. The funds are intended to pay for programs to help transform healthcare in rural areas.”
Scheinblum says networking and learning from his colleagues across the state and around the country are also essential to navigating changes and challenges.
“Some of these things we’re working on implementing, the things we’re developing, they’re not all my ideas. There are a lot of things I have learned from people across the country,” he said. “We are very fortunate here. We have a very supportive community, a great medical staff, very dedicated employees, and we have an excellent hospital.”