Thank you for following along with our series of letters that address the new Trinity Health healthcare campus and medical district. In this second letter, I’d like to share the original vision for our regional care system.

As mentioned last time, the Trinity Health Board of Directors challenged the leadership team to build a model for transformative yet sustainable 21st century healthcare. A five-year strategic plan (2009-2014) identified the major goals of this work.

For guidance, we looked at who lived in our service area and what kinds of medical services they used. We considered population growth, aging, and a renewed focus on helping people stay healthy. We consulted strategic advisors that helped us identify the forthcoming changes in healthcare both clinically and from a business perspective. By the end of 2010, this information helped Management lay out their operational plans for future healthcare delivery in Minot and Northwest North Dakota.

Called “Reinventing Health”, the strategic recommendations advocated for a new, state-of-the-art hospital facility surrounded by ancillary services and physician offices.

Five key factors drove the need for such a major undertaking. These included:

— A 21st century healthcare campus and medical district is required to meet community and regional healthcare needs

— Maintaining specialized healthcare services to benefit Minot and the region is a priority

— Seamless delivery of healthcare services is essential

— Changing demographics in the community must be addressed

— Competition for staff will increase

These recommendations also supported continued local control of the campus and services offered. During the 2010s, many rural hospital systems opted to relinquish control of their operations to larger organizations based in far-away cities. The Board of Directors made it clear that Trinity Health would remain an independent system with decisions made locally and in the best interest of the community and region-at-large.

As it related to the project, our leadership team believed patient care would benefit most from construction of a healthcare campus and medical district. To realize our goal of becoming a regional care system, design elements had to include an outpatient model of care, with power and infrastructure to support cutting-edge technology, and provide room to grow. The original Trinity Hospital – even with remodeling and renovations – could not meet the needs of integrated care delivery.

In late 2010, the Trinity Health Board of Directors received our recommendations. As you can imagine, they had more questions than we had answers.

Where will you build it (downtown or SW Minot)?

How much will it cost?

How will it be paid for?

What’s in it for the patients/employees/community?

Next time I’ll share with you how we addressed these questions and got the green light to begin work on Trinity’s future healthcare campus and medical district.