Holton Community Hospital
Building & Renovation Project
Embrace the Future Campaign
Aerial View Provided by AHRS Construction
The Basics
WHO?
Holton Community Hospital is owned by Rural Health Resources of Jackson County, a corporation formed in the late 90s. The hospital is designated as a “Critical Access Hospital” (CAH). It is important for you to know that Holton Community Hospital doesn’t receive any tax dollars to support the facility. This is a very rare situation in rural health care. Very few hospitals do not receive tax dollars in one form or another.
Our Critical Access designation provides an additional, and important, source of revenue. Being a CAH means we get reimbursed for the cost of care for Medicare patients through a different formula than non-CAH facilities. The program, created in 1997, actually allows us to come much closer to covering the actual costs of that care. It also helps us with the funding of this project. You can read more about that in the “HOW?” portion of this brochure.
WHAT?
This is a comprehensive building and renovation project.
There will be:
Additions to the Emergency Department,
A New ClinicBuilding,
Updated Operating Area
Renovated Specialty Clinic
New Office Space
Meeting and Training space
Updating to current spaces
-Room for growth.
Due to the lending requirements of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), our largest source of funding, at least 50% of the project needs to be new construction. (More under HOW?) Under the parameters of the funding, which comes with very beneficial lending rates, we will be able to build a more efficient and up-to-date building to meet many of our future needs.
WHEN?
We'd like to see the project break ground in the summer of 2019. This timeline is, of course, dependent on our ability to attain some of our fundraising goals.
While a significant portion of the project will be adapting the current space, the new construction provisions from the USDA will allow the construction of a new 6,594 sq. foot clinic space to the southeast of the current hospital building. The Emergency Area will expand into the parking lot. Parking will be designed around the new construction. The inpatient wing will expand out from the current hallway. The Specialty Clinic will expand into current office space and into a courtyard. Office space, meeting and training rooms will be added to a second floor on the new Clinic building.
WHERE?
While a significant portion of the project will be adapting the current space, the new construction provisions from the USDA will allow the construction of a new 6,594 sq. foot clinic space to the southeast of the current hospital building. The Emergency Area will expand into the parking lot. Parking will be designed around the new construction. The inpatient wing will expand out from the current hallway. The Specialty Clinic will expand into current office space and into a courtyard. Office space, meeting and training rooms will be added to a second floor on the new Clinic building.
WHY?
We are out of space. The current hospital was built twenty years ago. The same is true of the clinic building we have been renting for that amount of time. Obviously, much has changed since then. We are providing more in-house services, like Pulmonary Function Testing, Nuclear Medicine, and others, which require more equipment and space. Our capabilities to grow with even more services is greatly diminished due to the space restraints. We have more medical providers and staff members. We must continue to maintain the required regulations specific to Critical Access Hospitals and Rural Health Clinics. Additional space will also allow us to provide greater privacy for our patients. The entire project is being designed to meet the unique challenges of healthcare in a rural setting.
HOW?
Years ago the USDA recognized a challenge in our rural communities. Very few facilities had the funding needed to address the major renovations that were needed to provide smaller communities the ability to address even basic needs facing healthcare in the rural environment. They created a loan program that would work hand-in-hand with the Critical Access Hospital program to provide long-term, low-interest loans to facilities that were capable of fulfilling the obligation of payments.
Holton Community Hospital has worked closely with the USDA to secure this loan for the upcoming project. One of the requirements of the loan is the 50% new construction provision. This allows for a greater level of depreciation (and consequential reimbursement) for the Critical Access Hospital program. This mechanism is how a majority of large hospital projects across rural America have been funded in recent years. We also established local funding that is backed by a loan-guarantee program through the USDA. One of the requirements of that program specifically requires local participation as a process of “equity”. As a result, we will be seeking out private charitable funding with our Embrace the Future Capital Campaign to provide for that funding while ensuring some financial flexibility for future needs.