Columbia Basin Hospital celebrates 75 years

EPHRATA — Columbia Basin Hospital was important to the community 75 years ago, and it’s still a vital part of Ephrata’s health care. 

“The grand opening (of the hospital building) was in 1958, and they had over 2,000 people attend,” said Communication and Development Director Susan Scheib. 

Columbia Basin Hospital celebrated its diamond jubilee Friday with an open house that included tours of the hospital, discounts on blood work and free grilled burgers for all. There were stations where visitors could learn about Narcan, the MyChart patient information app and the hospital’s finances. For the younger visitors, there was a teddy bear clinic where children could bring their fluff-filled friends – and dolls, and action figures – to have their weight, height and vitals checked. 

One of the jewels of the tour was the hospital’s newly expanded emergency room. The ER sees 15-17 patients a day on average, said Business Operations Director Jerri Beaver, and lately it’s been more like 20-22 patients a day. 

“We have 24/7 admitting to help the patients in the waiting room,” Beaver said. “We have Narcan in the waiting room if anybody needs it. It’s free. There are, sadly, lots of family members who (need) it on hand.” 

The emergency room expansion was just finished in May, Beaver said. There’s now a dedicated triage room, a trauma room, and an airborne infectious isolation room. 

“If somebody comes in with an unidentified organism, or maybe it's MRSA, or those type of things, they'll just precautiously put them in the room and wait until they draw their labs,” Beaver said. 

Along with the hospital itself, Columbia Basin Hospital has a primary care clinic to care for the community before they need a hospital. 

“That’s where people are getting the majority of their care on a daily basis,” said Columbia Basin Hospital CEO Rosalinda Kibby. “Yes, we have the ER for trauma or very urgent things, but our primary care rural health clinic is a (mainstay) of the hospital district.” 

“At the clinic, we’re (newborn) to end of life,” said Clinic Manager Christina Harvill. “A lot of people don’t realize that we do pediatrics. One thing I like to highlight is that it’s really nice for a clinician to see the generational (familiarity). They might see the baby, they might see Mom, they might see Dad, they might see Grandma. And if someone comes up with a condition and they’ve been treating Grandma, now they know how to treat the child.” 

That multi-generational approach works especially well in a small community like Ephrata, Harvill said.  

“The patients love that because they feel comfortable with (the providers),” she said. “Our clinicians have been here a long time. We've got good long-term clinicians that have been here and are staying here and are rooted in the community. I know some other clinics have problems, and they see a lot of turnover. We don't really have that here.” 

Columbia Basin Hospital has expanded several times since the original 53,000-square-foot building was put on the current property in 1957. A chart on the wall outlined the additions to the hospital in 1968, 1984, 1996, 2008 and 2009. Now it’s preparing to increase its offerings even more, with a bond measure on the August ballot, Kibby said.  

The bond would cover expanded clinic hours, new specialty services and a pharmacy, according to the hospital’s literature. The proposed bond would raise an estimated $1.83 per $1,000 of assessed property value, Kibby said. That figure includes the bond that the hospital ran in 2012 for the inpatient wing and rehabilitation gym, which has about 10 more years to go, Kibby said. Once that one is paid off, the new bond would drop to somewhere around 92 cents per $1,000, she said. 

“In 75 years, this is the fifth bond (we’ve asked) our community for,” Kibby said. “We only go out for (a) bond in the community if we’re doing a building project. Otherwise, we produce our own revenue. We pay our own bills. We’re not asking the community for that.” 

    Christina Harvill, right, and Ashley McVay talk about what Columbia Basin Hospital’s primary care clinic offers with visitors to the hospital’s 75th anniversary celebration Friday.
  

    The entrance to Columbia Basin Hospital in Ephrata. The hospital, which celebrated its 75th birthday Friday, is putting a bond proposal before voters for expanded services including specialty provider space and a community pharmacy.