HOISINGTON — Clara Barton Hospital plans to upgrade its processing area for sterilizing equipment and make better use of space through remodeling as part of a $2,933,500 federal grant. On Wednesday, U.S. Senator Dr. Roger Marshall (R-KS) toured the hospital to celebrate the grant awarded through the Rural Health Transformation Program.
Clara Barton CEO Jay Tusten said the hospital plans to renovate the sterile processing area. Ray Horton, OR RN, led a tour through the area to be improved.
On a normal day, he said, there are stacks of instruments ready to be sterilized. After knocking out some walls to create more space, two updated sterilizers will be installed. The area will be completely separated from the clinical side of the hospital to prevent cross contamination, but it will also be more accessible after the remodeling. There will be an expanded storage area. With the renovation, the space of the current storage area will be roughly triple what it is now.
There will also be remodeling at the clinic across the street, which was the old surgical clinic, Tusten said. It has been used for office space, but some offices have been moved to the new office space in Great Bend. “So now we’re going to remodel it so we can put outpatient services there.”
Supporting rural hospitals
Marshall said he and Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, came up with the Rural Health Transformation Program on New Year’s Eve of 2024.
“I went to Dr. Oz’s house, where we spent all day together trying to figure out – as President Trump charged us – ‘What can you do for rural American health care?’ I said, ‘Let each county figure out what to do with the money themselves.’ We came up with this $50 billion grant over five years’ time that was part of the Working Family Tax Cuts Bill. Kansas was awarded $222 million, the most per capita of any state in the union,” he said.
The state then set up a committee to figure out how to distribute the money. Marshall said Clara Barton Hospital got one of the bigger grants.
“I don’t do earmarks, but what I’ve tried to do is make sure the federal money that is being spent is being spent the right way,” Marshall said. “I think it’s better for each community to figure out their own way – what’s the best way to spend the money to improve health. This is just the first of about three or four rounds of this Rural Health Transformation, so there will be more opportunities even this year to share those funds.”
That wasn’t the only piece of legislation that Marshall worked on to help rural health-care facilities, he said.
“The other big piece that I worked on is to get increased funding for the provider tax funding. So we’ve increased the amount of funding for all the hospitals across the state by about $400 million. And about a $100 million of that is going to go to critical access hospitals.”
“We’re very appreciative with that,” Tusten said.
“It should be a million dollars, on average, and of increased revenue for critical access hospitals. I would argue that we’ve done more for rural America than any one administration’s ever done.”
He added, “That’ll help stabilize them; we have about what 67 critical excess hospitals in Kansas, and their average loss is $600,000 every year. So at least I hope this will keep them on their feet for a year or two, as we go through these next transition phases, so to speak.”
The next issue
Marshall said he hopes to do more. “Hopefully we’ll get our Prior Authorization Bill across the finish line this year. I’m on the Finance Committee and it will be our top priority for them to get done at the end of the year.”
He said Medicare Advantage plans are taking advantage of/abusing the prior authorization rules for medical procedures, and delaying care.
“Big guys like United Healthcare are just infamous for abusing it. Our Prior Authorization Bill would create a streamlined process for the doctors and hospitals that do these guardrails, that it can’t be denied.”
