By Tim Huether Things are in great shape at the Bennett County Hospital and Rural Health Clinic and looking to improve even more with the planned new facility project expected to break ground in March of this year.
In addition to getting a new building, the hospital will be hiring a new CEO as Michael Christensen is leaving to take a position on the west coast to be closer to family.
Christensen has made many changes at the facility to improve it during his three years here.
“I like to look at things in several ways,” said Christensen. “One of those is community. What are we doing that is different or better? We have improved our relationship with Oglala Lakota College Nursing School, Sinte Gleska Nursing School in Rosebud and we will have students from Loyola State University in Chicago coming here again. Some nurses will be coming from Kent State University again. We will have nurses from all over coming to our facility to help understand how a rural hospital, clinic and ambulance is run...and I think that’s important to know.”
“One of our biggest challenges is hiring and sometimes you have to bring people in from outside,” continued Christensen.
He said they have good relationships with the South Dakota colleges as well and one of them has a rural health program, Rural Experience for Health Professions Students (REHPS), saying they have hired several providers through that program.
Loyola will bring 6-7 nursing students in March doing a rotation, getting used to a rural community. By doing so, the govt. helps pay off the student’s loans.
Christensen said one of the big questions asked about the facility is what is happening with the new hospital.
“We have hired a contractor, McGough Construction, who is very big into healthcare construction,” said Christensen. “They are working on getting subcontractors and subcontractors pricing.”
He said the hospital has a low interest, long term loan with terms at 2 percent for 36 years. They also have a $2 million block grant and those funds will be enough to build the new hospital.
“There’s lots of excitement moving forward,” exclaimed Christensen.
If all goes well, ground breaking could begin in March of this year. The project will take about 26 months to complete.
According to the McGough Construction’s website, the Bennett County Hospital project consists of approximately 5,000 SF of building removal, 15,100 SF of new construction, approximately 7,900 SF of interior gut and remodel and 1,800 SF of minor interior remodel. Hospital services include emergency room triage, imaging, 15 patient rooms, lab, physical and occupational therapy, home health and support services. The project includes some site construction including a 27 space parking lot, street edge parking, utility connections, and modified main existing parking to accommodate an emergency drive.
“We had to close the nursing home because of finances,” said Christensen. “We have repurposed that as a wellness center. We will have a senior life services, which is mental, behavioral and emotional health for seniors starting there in April. Physical therapy will move to the far east end so we can use their space where they are currently at for more patient rooms once construction begins. Home Health will move to the south end of the wellness center since their office will be torn off in the new construction.”
He added they will have an ambulance, EMS and nursing training room set up. They will look at putting in a pharmacy retail kiosk to accommodate patients when the local pharmacy is closed, nights and weekends.
“We are not looking to compete with our local pharmacy, he’s a great pharmacist, but we want to meet the need of those who need medicine when he’s not open.”
The hospital is looking at adding a community health worker who will help educate people on how to qualify for medicare and medicaid, using the healthcare system, etc. so people get coverage for things they are qualified for.
The hospital received a grant to teach certified health workers.
The hospital has a new foundation that has $1.9 million in cash and pledges and the CEO said that is a great thing that will last for a long time.
He said he asks the community to step up and support the foundation in any way they can to help continue the success of the hospital. They still need volunteer board members and dedicated people to contribute to it.
“We successfully wrote 21 grants and were funded for about $4 million in grants the last three years,” said the CEO. “We were able to buy two new ambulances, two new home health vehicles, the state’s newest lab analyzer, two pieces of portable radiology equipment and a kiosk for checking for Covid.”
Another exciting piece of equipment in one ambulance, is a tele-med trauma doctor online device where you can have a doctor who can see the patient in the ambulance and basically from afar, ride with the patient to the hospital.
“This is cutting edge,” explained Christensen. “Not many places in all of America have this yet. This is a program through Avera and is called AVEL and is funded through a grant. When this first came out, Bennett County was the third place to get approved with just 51 in place in the U.S. so far. They are now applying for a grant to get on in two more ambulances.
Christensen said the hospital staffing is in excellent shape with all the key management positions filled.
“We now have a certified pharmacy tech, a certified lab manager, a certified lab manager, a new IT manager and we’ve updated our wage scale,” remarked Christensen. “We have a new chief nursing officer. We have certified nursing aids.
Shawnee Anson recently became a Certified Infection Control Nurse, which about one tenth of one percent of all nurses get that certification with only about 15 in all of South Dakota having that.
“As far as our quality of care goes, we ended 2023 with a perfect score,” said Christensen. “We had a total of 17 different surveys and every survey had a perfect score on quality. The state comes in and at the end of all the surveys there was not one thing we were not doing right. That’s almost a miracle and that means we have great leadership and great people.”
He said they have monthly meetings addressing what they can do to improve quality and that is led by Shawnee Anson.
The financial audits also had no findings, resulting in perfect audits on all three.
Financially, the last two months of the hospital were the best two they have had in many years, according to the CEO.
“We saw more clinic patients in 2023 than we have in any other year,” proclaimed Christensen. “We saw more emergency room patients and we saw an increase back to pre-Covid levels for physical therapy and home health. We had a 30th anniversary of home health in 2023 and celebrated 100 years an organization in 2023. That all makes it an appropriate time to get a new hospital.”
He said closing the nursing home was a difficult decision, but argues that if they had not done that, the hospital would have failed. He said because of that decision, they are much stronger financially. Saying, looking forward looks financially great.
Now that he is leaving, Stephanie Moran will be the transitional leader until a new CEO can be hired and he said the board is looking to announce a new CEO hire soon.
“Personally, leaving has been a hard decision and I hate it but it was a good job opportunity and the best thing for my family,” stated Christensen. “We’re moving to the west coast where we will be closer to a daughter, grandchildren, my father and other family members. My wife is still going through cancer treatment and this will put her closer to getting the right level of treatment.”
“I always say, my gold standard for myself, is that if I came somewhere and when I leave it’s better because I was there, then I feel like I did something that was good,” concluded Christensen. “I think there’s a lot of things that are better here because I was here. I’m leaving on good terms and it is just the right time for a lot of reasons.”