St. Anthony Regional Hospital is preparing to begin a multi-year, $32.6 million campus overhaul that will streamline patient services and bring new diagnostic and treatment options to one of the state’s largest rural hospitals. St. Anthony President and CEO Allen Anderson says projects of this scale take years of planning, but the initiative began after staff noted increased patient volume in the emergency department.
Anderson adds they started looking at just the trauma center, but scope creep and the donation of the former American Home Shield building to the hospital nearly two years ago opened up other possibilities. Several of the hospital’s less patient-focused offices have since moved to the administrative building, opening those spaces for other uses. Chief Financial Officer Eric Salmonson says construction is also underway at the annex to open a St. Anthony-owned childcare center.
Once open, the center will create 104 additional childcare slots. That piece of the project was facilitated by a $1.5 million grant from Iowa Workforce Development (IWD) earlier this year to address the region’s long-standing childcare shortage. Salmonson says the overall project is split into phases, with the first section centered on the hospital’s emergency department and improved treatment and diagnostic centers.
Other phases of the project include consolidating the hospital’s entrances into a single central location on the south side of the main facility, revamping the parking deck to better serve patients, and other smaller but no less important renovations. Salmonson says the $32.6 million project will have no impact on patients’ costs, and he and Anderson credit the redesignation as a critical access hospital (CAH) and years of sound fiscal management by their predecessors for making this possible.
Anderson adds that there will obviously be some disruptions on campus while construction is underway, but the hospital’s staff is prepared to maintain patient services throughout. Construction is slated to begin in December and conclude by March 2028. Anderson and Salmonson made their comments this (Thursday) morning on KCIM. A link to the full conversation is included with this story on our website.
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