Facilities near Fort Riley expanding services

Topeka Capital-Journal, The, Oct 25, 2007 by Morgan Chilson

By Morgan Chilson

SPECIAL TO THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL

By 2011, Fort Riley will have added more than 8,000 soldiers to its ranks, along with their families. Figuring an average of 2.5 people in each soldier's family, and the Fort Riley area will have grown by a whopping 20,000 people.

The three hospitals that serve most Fort Riley soldiers and their families have been assessing the upcoming population boom and making plans to accommodate health needs. And as one hospital official pointed out, estimated increases aren't confined to Fort Riley residents.

"The military growth really doesn't affect the civilian hospitals directly," said Cyndy Platt, spokeswoman for Junction City's Geary Community Hospital. "What does affect us is the business and the industry that come to support the military folks that move here. Our growth is going to be from the new businesses and the new industry, and we've got a ton coming in or already here."

Platt said most soldiers and family members go to the Fort Riley hospital, because of military insurance requirements.

Irwin Army Community Hospital, then is the hospital most obviously affected by the post expansion. Maj. Lance Bergeson, chief of clinical operations, said the hospital makes its business plans two years out. When word came in during January 2006 that Fort Riley would grow, those plans were easily adjusted.

"When you're dealing with a fairly large growth of population and that population is not only here on post, but in the adjoining communities, that puts pressure on the health care system," he said.

In Manhattan

Manhattan's hospital, Mercy Regional Health Center, does see increased usage by Fort Riley soldiers, particularly in emergency room visits, said Lydia Huber, vice president of planning and development for Mercy. Although military insurance prefers that soldiers be treated at military hospitals, emergency situations may necessitate a visit to the nearest hospital. Soldiers who live in Manhattan tend to use Mercy's emergency department, she said.

In fact, with the 4,000 soldiers and families added to Fort Riley's population in the past two years, Mercy is seeing a significant increase in emergency room usage, Huber said. In 2005, 5.3 percent of the emergency department volume was billed to military insurance, TRICARE. In 2006, that jumped to 7.9 percent with an increase of almost 2,400 patients.

Mercy has added eight physicians to staff in the past year, covering the range from primary care to specialty care doctors such as cardiologists, Huber said.

Both civilian hospitals have been expanding their physical plants for some time, and those expansions are expected to cover increased military needs.

Junction City

At Geary Community, the hospital has doubled in size, adding 110,000 square feet in a $34 million project that began seven years ago, Platt said. The work is expected to be completed by December 2008 and includes a new surgery center, a new medical-surgical unit, a new Intensive Care Unit and a new radiology department. Like Mercy, the hospital has been actively recruiting new doctors and mid- level professionals, such as nurse practitioners, physician assistants and midwives, she said.

The Mercy expansion involved adding a fourth floor to the hospital and updating the existing space, Huber said. The price tag on the expansion has been close to $65 million but is expected to increase as some projects are completed in the next few years.

Bergeson, who said Irwin Army is comparable to a small community hospital, said its primary business is primary care. That means making sure those departments are covered well with staff and equipment.

"There had been some growth in population between this summer and the previous summer, so we knew we had a larger population of kids to deal with," he said as an example of increased services. "So we offered over 30 percent more school physicals."

Because running neonatal or standard ICUs requires a certain level of volume to be practical, Irwin Army doesn't offer those services. That's an area where local hospitals and even Topeka's Stormont-Vail HealthCare step in, Bergeson said. Stormont-Vail's neonatal ICU is frequently used by soldiers.

On base

Like many hospitals in the country, Irwin Army struggles with recruiting physicians and currently has seven openings.

"This is rural Kansas," Bergeson said. "We have the same challenges any other hospital has. It's not that we don't or can't get those people in - we do over time. But it just takes longer and it's more challenging. We've projected even more positions as we move into the next fiscal year."

From a bricks and mortar standpoint, Bergeson said Fort Riley's health care community is in good shape. A renovation of the women and children's health center was completed more than a year ago. There are some renovation projects ongoing, including the medical- surgical department, he said. In addition, there is an additional clinic for the post that's being proposed.

"Assuming that there isn't a huge change in the population targets, we're satisfied that we're positioned well to meet those needs," Bergeson said. "We are in this interim period and that's always painful. But we're confident that we have a plan in place to meet the needs of what we would call the static population that we're expecting here at Fort Riley."