HCH open house set

Several renovations have been completed at Holton Community Hospital recently, and an open house is scheduled from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. Saturday to let local residents get a closer look at the finished product.

The open house will also include a “meet and greet” with the hospital’s new physician assistant, Bill Kinkade, according to Carrie Saia, HCH CEO.

The hospital’s cardiovascular department, which includes multiple pieces of exercise equipment, was moved and expanded into the space previously occupied by the business office and medical records.  

“We knocked down a wall to open up the space,” Saia said. “With all that equipment, everyone was really on top of each other at the old space.”

The move allowed the hospital to purchase two more pieces of exercise equipment for general wellness use or for patients recovering from a recent heart attack.

Holton resident Bill Jones uses the exercise equipment three times a week and said the new space for the department was needed.

“There’s more room, and you don’t feel like your squeezed in,” Jones said. 

The physical therapy department also doubled in size.

“The area where the cardiovascular department was located butted up next to physical therapy,” Saia said. “So when that department moved, we knocked down a wall to expand the space for therapy.”

Two private rooms were added to the physical therapy department, as well as more areas for occupational therapy. 

When Dr. Alex Gilliland and his wife, Taige, expanded Holton Dental on the north side of the building, the lower level basement area that resulted from the expansion was originally left unfinished. The hospital now rents the basement area and finished it as part of the remodel. 

The area now includes the offices for health information management and a large conference room.

“With just chairs, it can hold 90 people,” Saia said. 

The area also includes two “sleep rooms” and a bathroom for the doctors and visiting medical residents.  

“When we have residents from KU come out, the students will stay there,” Saia said. “They had been staying in the doctors’ homes.”

Also on the lower level, just down the hallway, is the hospital’s new business office. The offices were previously occupied by the home health office, which moved to the Holton Square. 

Saia said that renovations began in July and were finished Jan. 1. They totaled $866,452.

“We want to continue to grow in those areas that mean something to our community,” Saia said. 

McCownGordon of Kansas City was the general contractor for the project, and Pulse Design was the architecture firm.

Last year, the Holton City Commission agreed to issue $3.6 million in health care facilities revenue bonds on behalf of Rural Health Resources in order finance the remodel, as well as refinance existing bonds used in the construction of the Holton hospital and to construct a new clinic in Hoyt.