An official groundbreaking ceremony will be held Wednesday afternoon in Atlantic for a $23.5-million dollar expansion and renovation project at the Cass County Memorial Hospital. CCMH Administrator and CEO Pat Markham says planning for the project actually began not long after the last major project was completed, in 1994. She says as the changes in health care have occurred over the years, especially the transition from in-patient to out-patient care, the hospital realized the need to consolidate the in-patients services and expand upon their surgery and the out-patient services.

Markham says CCMH Board of Directors began working on the financing and budgeting process for the expansion and renovation last Summer. When complete, the facility will feature a new, state-of-the-art Emergency Room and O-R surgery services, along with same-day surgery, which will be on the first floor of the new addition. Markham says all of the in-patient services will consolidated into the second floor of the addition. 

Following that, a renovation will occur in a number of areas at the hospital, including the outpatient clinic, expansion of the oncology and cardiology and cardiac rehab areas. All of the facility’s rehab services will then be moved to what’s currently the surgery and O-B areas. The three in-patient wings at the hospital will be demolished, which is the last piece of the project.

Just about a year ago, the facility added a new Home Care Hospice center, which will be demolished as part of the current renovation project. Markham says that’s because since it was built, the hospice services have been transitioned to Iowa Health Home Care, and is no longer under the auspices of the Cass County Health System. 

She says it was only intended to serve as a temporary location to develop the service and gauge the communities’ response to such a service. Markham says it was not the “ideal situation,” and the service providers and staff preferred to see it in a totally separate location, with a more “residential” feel.

Markham says Wednesday’s brief, groundbreaking ceremony for the new addition and renovation, will take place at 1-p.m. in the east parking lot at CCMH.