On the crisp, sparkling shores of Lake Superior on Minnesota’s North Shore, Silver Bay is more than a city, it’s a lifestyle. About 1,800 people call it home, drawn by the views and the peace of small-town life.
But, like many rural communities across the country, Silver Bay has been losing vital healthcare access with residents facing increasing barriers to getting care.
The city’s only healthcare clinic is closing in December 2026 and nearly a third of residents are 65 or older. That’s exactly the population that feels a healthcare gap the most. The town’s only pharmacy is not open on weekends and residents will now need to transport at least 30 miles away for clinical and emergency services.
That has left many people wondering how they’ll be able to stay independent at home in Silver Bay.
Now Silver Bay is stepping up as the second Minnesota community to join the Rural Health Innovation Initiative, a six-month pilot led by the University of Minnesota Center for Healthy Aging and Innovation. The goal is to test the impact of pharmacy and care services delivered directly into people’s homes, no matter how far they live from the nearest pharmacy.
One countertop device opening a world of services
The centerpiece of the pilot is the Ōmcare Home Health Hub®, a compact in-home device that automatically sorts and dispenses medication in pre-timed packets whenever a person’s medication schedule calls for it. There’s no more guessing whether today’s pills were taken.
Beyond medication management, the Hub gives participants:
- A screen for video calls with family, friends and caregivers
- 24/7 phone access to pharmacy staff
- Monthly check-ins with a medication management team
It’s built to answer a simple but urgent question: can older adults get consistent, reliable care without living close to a pharmacy?
Local leadership sees an opportunity
Silver Bay Mayor Wade LeBlanc has been vocal about what this pilot could mean for the city’s future. As a small community working to support its aging population with a thinning healthcare infrastructure, he sees real potential in bringing this kind of innovation home. And he’s hoping it sticks around.
The city is already looking past the six-month pilot window, aiming to partner with Essentia Health to keep the service model in place for residents long-term.
The view from Ōmcare
This isn’t about any one device; it’s not technology for technology’s sake. This pilot is about communities people are committed to staying in, even with the erosion of the infrastructure that once supported them.
Silver Bay reflects exactly the kind of community the pilot was built for. It’s a town people love deeply, where they want to spend their entire lives, but where the healthcare system hasn’t kept pace.
For us, the pilot is a chance to test whether an in-home model can genuinely close that gap, not just patch it, to help residents stay healthy, independent and connected to the community they’ve chosen.
It’s easy to think of a medication management as a logistics problem to solve. But the connection achieved through check-ins with family, loved ones and caregivers is just as important. Isolation is as much a rural health risk as a missed medication dose, and worth designing for.
Why this matters beyond Silver Bay
Silver Bay isn’t an outlier. Rural clinics and pharmacies have been closing across Minnesota and the country for years. The communities left behind are disproportionately older. The Rural Health Innovation Initiative is explicitly designed to test whether the Ōmcare model can scale; not just as a stopgap for one North Shore city, but as a blueprint for rural communities nationwide facing the same erosion of local care.
The University of Minnesota Center for Healthy Aging and Innovation is leading the evaluation and tracking outcomes over the six-month pilot to understand how well the model supports aging in place. It’s all part of discovering what it will take to bring it to more towns like Silver Bay.
Is your community next?
If your rural community is watching its local healthcare options shrink, this pilot might be worth a conversation. Communities interested in bringing this kind of in-home medication management and care model to their own residents can reach out to the University of Minnesota study office to learn about participating in a future pilot.
Ready to explore what this could look like where you live? Contact Email: healthstudy@umn.edu