Hospital firm targets Herington
Staff writer
The company that owns Hillsboro Community Hospital plans to build a rural emergency hospital in Herington to fill a void left by the closure in October, 2023, of Herington Municipal Hospital.
The closure was a result of a $1.9 million suit Emprise Bank filed against the Herington hospital and clinics it operated in Hillsboro and Junction City.
“The community has been without local emergency and inpatient care since the hospital’s closure due to financial constraints,” said Rural Hospital Group chief executive Trent Skaggs.
The planned emergency hospital would provide emergency services that would allow patients to be stabilized before being transferred if needed.
It also woulc offer outpatient services such as diagnostic imaging, laboratory testing, and specialty care.
Proposed is a 7,520-square-foot facility in Herington’s industrial park. It would cost $7 million to $8 million and create about 30 full-time jobs.
The City of Herington will extend utilities to the site.
Planning is in early stages, Skaggs said.
Rural Hospital Group is working with state and federal agencies on regulatory and site matters.
“Financing the project is still in progress, but initial conversations with investors and lenders have been positive,” Skaggs said.
Kansas Hospital Association spokesman Cindy Samuelson said a rural emergency hospital fell between a clinic and a critical access hospital, like St. Luke in Marion or Hillsboro Community Hospital..
“If you think about what a clinic is, and you think about what a full-time hospital is, it’s kind of in the middle,” Samuelson said.
Rural emergency hospitals have beds to admit emergency patients for up to 24 hours of observation before patients are sent home or transferred to other hospitals.
They are required to provide emergency care, observation, laboratory services, radiology and imaging services, pharmacy, and discharge planning.
They might provide telemedicine and transportation services.
Optional services include primary health care, chronic condition care, urgent care, outpatient surgery, behavioral health, and specialty care, and could include a skilled nursing unit.
Skaggs said it was too soon to predict a date when construction would begin but he guessed it could be during the second half of 2026.
The group decided to build its own facility instead of trying to convert the old Herington Hospital building because the old hospital is larger than needed and has structural defects that would be expensive to resolve.
Rural Hospital Group converted a Kentucky hospital to a rural emergency hospital and has had good results with the changeover, Skaggs said.
Rural hospitals all struggle, and rural emergency hospitals are a lifeline for smaller communities, he said.
“It’s hard to keep a critical access hospital going in these small communities,” he said.