Power County bond aims to renovate and expand hospital

In the 55 years since the Power County Hospital was first built, little fixes here and there were good enough.

The hospital’s administrator, Dallas Clinger, said besides repainting the walls and reworking the floor some remodels have been done.

“We have remodeled the old ambulance bay into a waiting area and admissions office,” he said. “We’ve remodeled a couple of rooms into CT scanning rooms.”

However, a big fix is needed now to — as Clinger puts it — bring the hospital to the 21st century. For Power County voters, a $15.25 million bond will be on their ballots. If it gets the two-thirds majority needed to pass, the money would go into renovating the existing building, as well as a building expansion.

A lot of the renovation plans are aimed at helping staff workflow. Currently, nurses have to traverse a couple hallways to get to the hospital’s only emergency room. With the renovations, the dozens of steps could be reduced to a couple of steps.

“The plan is to have two ER rooms rather than just a single one. Also, they’ll be located next to the nurse’s station so (nurses) can better monitor (patients),” Clinger said.

There’s also plans to raise the hospital’s helipad so it can connect to the second floor. Right now, patients coming from and going to the helipad have to go down a hallway, into an elevator and down another hallway.

The plan is then to add 25 parking spaces under the raised helipad.

While improving care is the priority, Clinger said the changes could also help with recruiting potential hospital staff.

“It’s a lot easier to recruit doctors and nurses if our facility looks nice, well-cared for and if it’s cutting edge,” he said.

The plan is to also add and remodel rooms so more of them have private bathrooms. The expansion would also bring the administration and other business offices into the hospital, since most are in offices across the street.

There will be an open house Thursday for the bond at the American Falls Library from 4:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Here’s a link to more information about the bond, which includes sketches of what the changes would look like.