Jason Harrington, CEO of Lakes Regional Healthcare gave an update on the facility plan to Iowa Great Lakes Rotary on Wednesday, January 5.
 
Jason Harrington has now been with Lakes Regional Healthcare for 18 months, but has been in the healthcare industry for 17 years. He shared the master plan for the medical campus in Spirit Lake with Rotary. The plan takes into account the five focus areas of the overall strategic plan for the hospital and also the fact that campus needs change drastically based on technology.

Dickinson County is one of four growing counties in the state and it has a disproportionate amount of residents who are 65+ creating demand for healthcare. He also talked about the visibility - or lack of visibility - with the hospital currently and the confusion about where the actual main entrance of the facility is. Additional factors considered when planning are the fact that there has been a dramatic shift from inpatient to outpatient care - 70% of services provided are outpatient at Lakes Regional right now. The hospital is also currently licensed as a 50 bed hospital, which will be reduced to 35 bed to account for that shift in services. So based on functionality, needs, accessibility, these are the changes we will start seeing at the hospital:

Phase I (Approved and in process)
-New Northwest Iowa Bone & Joint clinic - Dr. Leopold will be joining the group from Spencer which will have a permanent clinic located now in the SE corner of the hospital
-A new physical therapy area is also in process on the SE corner of the hospital campus - all physical therapy will relocate there
-New MRI will be in place by summer - this will look more like a "short donut" instead of a "tunnel" for more patient comfort - patients will also enter feet first, not head first
-Hospice/Home Health will move to where Dr. Leopold's clinic currently is

Phase II (not approved yet, but funding is determined and likely to happen)
-NE Corner of the campus will be a new surgery center - need to reinvest in surgery to keep up with technology (3600 surgeries currently a year)
- New entrance on east side and also the expansion of registration on both at both east and west entrances for patient convenience
-Above surgery center will be a new OB department (currently deliver about 200 babies a year)
-Intensive care unit will move above orthopedic center in SE corner of campus
-Low impact green initiatives to help with runoff and aethestics

Phase III (future plan - may change based on change in needs)
-old surgery space will be occupied by outpatient services
-imaging space revamped (radiology)

Phase IV (future plan as well)
-ER moves to between surgery & imaging
-Hwy 71 entrance redone
-old ER turns into 2 story medical office building

In addition to these plans, the develpment of a Foundation is also currently in process. There hasn't been one for about 10 years and the first meeting is set for February to get that going again.