Hospital unveils revamp

Crook County Memorial Hospital unveiled a sizeable upgrade to the old operating room and obstetrics area this week, transforming storage areas and rooms that have looked the same since the 1960s into a modern emergency department and imaging area with new equipment in an intuitive configuration.

"It looks a little different," laughs CEO Nathan Hough, standing in the corridor next to the nurse's station, where the walls are freshly painted and supplies are still being moved into the new equipment rooms. "We just got our certificate of occupancy last week."

To the left is the evaluation room, featuring space for two beds. Blue tape marks areas on the wall and floor where beds and equipment are still in the process of being installed.

Across from this entry area is one of two ADA-compliant bathrooms and the one throwback remaining to how the area used to look.

"This will be equipped as a procedure room, so this is where someone would come if they need some stitches or something like that," says Hough.

Still tiled in turquoise with its original cabinetry, the procedure room will likely be upgraded in the future but, for now, stands as a testament to sentimentality. On the opposite side of the corridor is the new medical supply area.

"With the new rules they've got, we did have to make some changes to where we store medication," Hough explains.

Evaluation rooms containing equipment such as the EKG and ultrasound line the rest of the corridor, with the brand new x-ray machine and CT scanner at the end. The latter was funded through a grant, says Hough, and the construction costs for its room are the same as the monthly payment for renting the scanner in the outside trailer, making it a cost-neutral upgrade for the hospital.

The x-ray will cost slightly more, he adds, but without the film and developing costs that were associated with the older machine, the extra will be minimal. The boon of having the updated equipment also more than justifies that cost.

"We can bring a patient right in here with the provider and they can be getting them on the table right as they're doing the evaluation," says Hough. This gives the provider an opportunity to get ahead, he explains, whereas, until now, the patient had to be taken across the parking lot to the rented trailer.

For the vast majority of cases, says Jami Helkenn, the hospital has achieved its goal of creating an emergency department that can evaluate a patient as they come in and either treat them on site or send them directly to a specialist or surgeon with the results of their tests in hand.

"You can LifeFlight them out of here and they'll have the resource by the time they get to their destination," says Helkenn.

Though still mid-transition, Hough believes the new department layout will assist with the flow of patient admission and also upgrade what the team is able to do.

"I hope it just gives people out there some confidence that they don't have to go all the way to Rapid City to get things done if they're in the area," comments Kathy Durrum.

"I would feel confident coming here for medical care now."

Though the team was doing a great job before in diagnosing and treating patient, says Hough, the "new toys" will improve the situation for the hospital's providers exponentially.

"We've got such a great team here they could do this stuff in a tent if they had to," Hough says. That's not even such an outlandish claim as it sounds; "We're prepared for that in a disaster, too," he smiles.