Healthy Expansion
gillete campbell county, hospital, medicine, morasko,
In Gillette, growth is not only good; it’s healthy.
Thanks to a growing economy and the accompanying population growth, Campbell County Memorial Hospital has been engaged in several expansion efforts.
“We have to expand our facilities to meet the growing demand for medical services,” says CCMH CEO Bob Morasko. “And the expansion of our emergency room is a classic example of our growth. It is going to make a big difference in the level of service we can provide.”
CCMH’s recent emergency room remodel and expansion adds space for emergency services and increases efficiency within the hospital. Some 6,000 square feet of new construction and remodeling help accommodate the emergency room’s roughly 25,000 annual visitors. In addition to providing patients with more privacy, the project increases the level of health care provided, thanks to the addition of some larger and better-equipped rooms for major trauma victims.
Projects such as the ER expansion demonstrate CCMH’s ongoing commitment to serving the greater Gillette area. As the only major hospital with 100 miles of Gillette in any direction, the hospital is an invaluable resource to the region.
But at CCMH, expanding medical care is about more than meeting basic needs; it’s about exceeding expectations. The hospital is the only medical facility in Wyoming that has all board-certified emergency physicians in its emergency room.
“We are committed to providing the highest level of care we can,” Morasko says. “We have a very high skill level requirement.”
Take CCMH’s hospitalist program, for example. A hospitalist is a staff doctor who cares exclusively for patients in the hospital, enabling private practice doctors to be free from being on call at the hospital. In turn, the program ensures that both adult internal medicine specialists and pediatricians are on hand to focus on hospital patients.
“We started the hospitalist program to take pressure off of area doctors,” Morasko says. “And for a hospital our size, that is very unique. And more importantly, I think it improves the quality of the care at the hospital.”
CCMH offers comprehensive health care services, including oncology, dialysis, a 12-bed intensive care unit and a broad spectrum of surgeries, including orthopedics. As CCMH continues to strive to bring efficient, quality health care to Gillette, recruitment efforts are now focused on expanding specialty services by attracting more quality physicians to the staff and community.
In addition to improving the way it delivers care, CCMH is also extending help to the Gillette business community by offering a new Comprehensive Occupational Health Program. This program will include services ranging from employee drug testing to on-demand physicals for employees. The initiative also will feature work injury management, allowing employees who are injured on the job to be expedited through the emergency process in order to help get them back to work sooner. And employee wellness programs with on-site testing and wellness coaching can keep a company’s workforce healthy through lifestyle changes.
“We have the ability, being a locally owned county hospital, to meet the needs that we think fit our community,” Morasko says. “Having that local control helps us develop our mission to provide a lifetime of care for residents of Campbell County.”
CCMH’s history runs deep. In June of 1953, a 31-bed, red brick hospital was built in Gillette at a cost of $275,000. Four physicians and one visiting surgeon served the community of 2,190, which was then on the brink of an oil boom. Residents and community leaders continued looking to the future of health care with the opening of Campbell County Memorial Hospital in 1981.
Expansion and improvements to the facility began almost immediately, with construction of the fourth and fifth floors, emergency room and outpatient surgery additions and construction of the two-story annex on the north end of the building. The Heptner Radiation Oncology Center was completed in 2002.
Story by Brandon Lowe
