{"id":3329,"date":"2024-09-27T10:20:06","date_gmt":"2024-09-27T10:20:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/?p=3329"},"modified":"2024-09-27T10:20:08","modified_gmt":"2024-09-27T10:20:08","slug":"a-few-rural-towns-are-bucking-the-trend-and-building-new-hospitals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/?p=3329","title":{"rendered":"A Few Rural Towns Are Bucking the Trend and Building New Hospitals"},"content":{"rendered":"
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There\u2019s a new morning ritual in Pinedale, Wyoming, a town of about 2,000 nestled against the Wind River Mountains.<\/p>\n

Friends and neighbors in the oil- and gas-rich community \u201ctake their morning coffee and pull up\u201d to watch workers building the county\u2019s first hospital, said Kari DeWitt, the project\u2019s public relations director.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s just gratitude,\u201d DeWitt said.<\/p>\n

Sublette County is the only one in Wyoming \u2014 where counties span thousands of square miles \u2014 without a hospital. The 10-bed, 40,000-square-foot hospital, with a similarly sized attached long-term care facility, is slated to open by the summer of 2025.<\/p>\n

DeWitt, who also is executive director of the Sublette County Health Foundation, has an office at the town\u2019s health clinic with a window view of the construction.<\/p>\n

Pinedale\u2019s residents have good reason to be excited. New full-service hospitals with inpatient beds are rare in rural America, where declining population has spurred decades of downsizing and closures. Yet, a few communities in Wyoming and others in Kansas and Georgia<\/a> are defying the trend.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be honest with you, it even seems strange to me,\u201d said Wyoming Hospital Association President Eric Boley. Small rural \u201chospitals are really struggling all across the country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A June 2024 drone view of a hospital being constructed in Pinedale, Wyoming. The new 10-bed hospital counters the national trend of downsizing and closures.(Sublette County Hospital District)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There is no official tally of new hospitals being built in rural America, but industry experts such as Boley said they\u2019re rare. Typically, health-related construction projects in rural areas are for smaller urgent care centers or stand-alone emergency facilities or are replacements for old hospitals.<\/p>\n

About half of rural hospitals lost money in the prior year, according to Chartis, a health analytics and consulting firm. And nearly 150 rural hospitals have closed or converted to smaller operations since 2010, according to data collected by the University of North Carolina\u2019s Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research.<\/p>\n

To stem the tide of closures, Congress created a new rural emergency hospital designation that allowed struggling hospitals to close their inpatient units and provide only outpatient and emergency services. Since January 2023, when the program took effect, 32 of the more than 1,700 eligible rural hospitals \u2014 from Georgia to New Mexico \u2014 have joined the program, according to data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.<\/p>\n

Tony Breitlow is health care studio director for EUA, which has extensive experience working for rural health care systems. Breitlow said his national architecture and engineering firm\u2019s work expands, replaces, or revamps older buildings, many of which were constructed during the middle of the last century.<\/p>\n

The work, Breitlow said, is part of health care \u201csystems figuring out how to remain robust and viable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Freeman Health System, based in Joplin, Missouri, announced plans last year<\/a> to build a new 50-bed hospital across the state line in Kansas. Paula Baker, Freeman\u2019s president and chief executive, said the system is building for patients in the southeastern corner of the state who travel 45 minutes or more to its bigger Joplin facilities for care.<\/p>\n

\"A
Paula Baker, president and chief executive of Freeman Health System, announces a new 50-bed hospital in southeastern Kansas.(Freeman Health System)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Freeman\u2019s new hospital, with construction on the building expected to begin in the spring, will be less than 10 miles away from an older, 64-bed hospital that has existed for decades. Kansas is one of more than a dozen states with no \u201ccertificate of need\u201d law<\/a> that would require health providers to obtain approval from the state before offering new services or building or expanding facilities.<\/p>\n

Baker also said Freeman plans to operate emergency services and a small 10-bed outpost in Fort Scott, Kansas, opening early next year in a corner of a hospital that closed in late 2018. Residents there \u201ccried, they cheered, they hugged me,\u201d Baker said, adding that the \u201clevel of appreciation and gratitude that they felt and they displayed was overwhelming to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michael Topchik, executive director of the Chartis Center for Rural Health, said regional health care systems in the Upper Midwest have been particularly active in competing for patients by, among other things, building new hospitals.<\/p>\n

And while private corporate money can drive construction, many rural hospital projects tap government programs, especially those supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Topchik said. That, he said, \u201csurprises a lot of people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since 2021, the USDA\u2019s rural Community Facilities Programs have awarded $2.24 billion in loans and grants to 68 rural hospitals for work that was not related to an emergency or disaster, according to data analyzed by KFF Health News and confirmed by the agency. The federal program is funded through what is often known as the farm bill, which faces a September congressional renewal deadline.<\/p>\n

Nearly all the projects are replacements or expansions and updates of older facilities.<\/p>\n

The USDA confirmed that three new or planned Wyoming hospitals received federal funding. Hospital projects in Riverton and Saratoga received loans of $37.2 million and $18.3 million, respectively. Pinedale\u2019s hospital received a $29.2 million loan from the agency.<\/p>\n

Wyoming\u2019s new construction is rare in a state where more than 80% of rural hospitals reported losses in the third quarter of 2023, according to Chartis. The state association\u2019s Boley said he worries about several hospitals that have less than 10 days\u2019 cash on hand \u201cday and night.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A
A 10-bed hospital construction site in remote Pinedale, Wyoming, a community comprising about 2,000 residents, who voted to raise taxes in support of the project.(Sublette County Hospital District)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Pinedale\u2019s project loan was approved after the community submitted a feasibility study to the USDA that included local clinics and a long-term care facility. \u201cIt\u2019s pretty remote and right up in the mountains,\u201d Boley said.<\/p>\n

Pinedale\u2019s DeWitt said the community was missing key services, such as blood transfusions, which are often necessary when there is a trauma like a car crash or if a pregnant woman faces severe complications. Local ambulances drove 94,000 miles last year, she said.<\/p>\n

DeWitt began working to raise support for the new hospital after her own pregnancy-related trauma in 2014. She was bleeding heavily and arrived at the local health clinic believing it operated like a hospital.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was shocking to hear, \u2018No, we\u2019re not a hospital. We can\u2019t do blood transfusions. We\u2019re just going to have to pray you live for the next 45 minutes,\u2019\u201d DeWitt said.<\/p>\n

DeWitt had to be airlifted to Idaho, where she delivered a few minutes after landing. When the hospital financing went on the ballot in 2020, DeWitt \u2014 fully recovered, with healthy grade-schoolers at home \u2014 began making five calls a night to rally support for a county tax increase to help fund the hospital.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy improving health care, I think we improve everybody\u2019s chances of survival. You know, it\u2019s pretty basic,\u201d DeWitt said.<\/p>\n