Ground Breaking May 1

The next few decades begins now.

With a goal of providing a hospital which will serve the area for the next 30 years, the staff and board at Bigfork Valley have been working during the past year on building plans.

On May 1, their work will begin to take shape. Over the next 20 to 22 months, a new wing will be added and extensive remodeling done to make the hospital more responsive to current needs and more convenient for patients and visitors to use. “Our long range strategic planning and customer survey have told us that we have to look at community health care in some new ways,” said Dan Odegaard, CEO. “When the community needs us...we want to be there.”

The new addition will extend to the back of the complex and house new patient rooms, a surgical suite and a new emergency room. Eleven patient rooms can accommodate 20 licensed beds, and there will be rooms suitable for birthing (if that service is added in the future) and hospice care. The single surgery room will be replaced with two modern operating surgery suites and a procedure room. The new emergency room will have private bays, and in an example of how health care needs have changed, there will be a decontamination room. That room can be accessed directly from the outside and will have equipment to remove everything from diesel fuel to a biological agent.

The current hospital building will be remodeled with an eye to logical planning and easy access. Visitors looking for the business office or the new expanded pharmacy will find it near the front entrance. Also near the front will be a wellness center and an adjacent area for physical and occupational therapy, and cardiac rehabilitation.

Outpatients visiting clinics after remodeling is complete will find them located where the emergency room is now, with a separate entrance.

The basement area under Spruce Lodge (nursing home) is also a construction zone. It is becoming an education wing with space for supply storage. During construction it will house the business office.

First to be built will be the new addition. The present building will be remodeled beginning in Spring 2005. Design for the new hospital was done by Jim Jordan and Associates, the Minneapolis-based architectural firm which designed the present clinic. A Minnesota firm with a local presence, Nor-son, will be the construction manager, with other construction bid packages available in late April.

The total cost for the building program is expected to be about $10.5 million. Bigfork Valley has received a $1 million grant from the Blandin Foundation and is applying for a $450,000 interest free loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The remainder of the financing will come from an $8 million revenue bond offering, internal reserves and a capital fund raising campaign. Revenue bonds, explained Odegaard, are not a taxpayer obligation but are paid back through earnings. “As our baby boomer population ages and retires to northern Minnesota, we must be ready to address the medical needs of our patients both today and in the future,” said Odegaard. “This construction project - the first major hospital construction project in 40 years - will help us do that.”

Ground breaking is planned for May 1, and the public is invited. The event will start at 10:30 a.m. with a barbecue lunch to follow.