By Keith Purtell
Muskogee’s relatively large number of major health care facilities is creating a health care hub for this region, drawing patients in a way similar size communities in the state do not.
Muskogee Regional Medical Center and the Jack C. Montgomery VA Medical Center are long-standing facilities, but the Cherokee Nation’s Three Rivers Health Center and the soon-to-be-opened Muskogee Community Hospital have doubled the number of large health care facilities in this community of approximately 38,000.
By comparison, Bartlesville’s population is close to the same size as Muskogee but only has one hospital. The Jane Phillips Medical Center is licensed for 144 beds, has 874 employees, 226 nurses and 92 doctors on staff.
Enid also is of similar size, but has two hospitals: St. Mary's Regional Medical Center and Integris Bass Baptist Health. St. Mary’s is licensed for 245 beds, has a staff of 695, 201 nurses and 90 doctors. Integris Bass is licensed for 207 beds, has a staff of 890, 282 nurses and 120 doctors.
The totals for the four facilities in Muskogee is 465 beds, 2,149 staff, 470 nurses and 234 doctors.
Nita McClellan, public affairs officer for the VA Medical Center, said more growth is expected at their facility.
“By the end of the year, we will be a 112-bed facility,” she said.
The growth in local facilities is giving more choices to patients.
Gene Foster, 62, said he will give MCH a try when it opens.
“I’m kind of excited to see how this new community hospital is,” he said. “My doctor is one of the doctors that is putting that in. And if he has anything to say about it, I’m sure it will be an outstanding medical facility.”
Adam Walmus, director of the Jack C. Montgomery VA Medical Center, said he believes the number of large health care facilities in Muskogee will be a benefit, partly because they bring in patients from a much wider area than Muskogee.
“I think with this number of medical centers, I would expect that we would be considered a medical hub for care, that would draw patients from a distance away,” he said. “And, I would hope that the physicians would be able to find basically any referral needs that they have in this area. So, the point is to try to take care of the patient as completely as possible.”
Walmus said the number of facilities and physicians should attract almost any medical specialty that patients would need. He said the VA medical center already draws patients from a wide area.
“Our primary service area covers about 27 counties throughout all of eastern Oklahoma from the Kansas to the Texas border,” he said. “Our work load has grown, and I expect it to continue to grow by at least five percent per year. Our inpatient rehab and our inpatient mental health unit especially were placed here so that we could help out with other VA medical centers. We look at Oklahoma and northern Arkansas as our region. So our market is much different than from a community medical center.”
Growth brings increase in educational demands
Stephanie Jett, director of nursing education at Bacone College, said the number of facilities is a factor in their enrollment.
“In fact, this spring has been one of the largest enrollments Bacone has had,” she said. “And we’re looking at a very large enrollment for nursing alone in the fall already.”
Jett said Muskogee’s number of major health care facilities opens opportunities for nurse training.
“It will effect us greatly,” she said. “It will increase the clinical sites that we will be able to take our students out in, where they can get hands-on experience, which they definitely need and which is a requirement of their certification and their licensure in order to pass nursing school. For the community, it’s great because hopefully most of our students as our program grows will stay in the community.”
That’s especially important, according to Jett, because of the trends in nursing.
“I’m on the governor’s task force team, and the last report that came out said that by 2012, we will be short in the state of Oklahoma 3,000 nurses,” she said. “If we’re going to be short 3,000 nurses by 2012, think about how that will effect the rural areas. We are hoping that the growth of the new medical facilities out here will provide that for our own nurses that graduate and live out in this area.”
Debate looms about number of patients to sustain facilities
Rhonda Cochran, chief administrator at Three Rivers Health Center, said her facility has no shortage of patients.
“We made 790 new charts last month,” she said. “The patients can come here and see the provider, go to the pharmacy, they can get their lab work done, and ultrasounds or radiology. We also have eye care and physical therapy. Sometimes they take one day off work and get everything done. Being an outpatient clinic for Native Americans we’re just a different niche. I think there will be plenty of patients to sustain us. I’m not so sure about the others.”
Cochran said they attract patients from a very wide market.
“We have people coming in from all the small towns around the area,” she said. “Being so centrally located, we’re trying to take some burden off (W.W.) Hastings (Hospital in Tahlequah) and some of the other clinics with the services we provide. We’re drawing in patients from past Tahlequah, from Tulsa, Eufaula, Checotah and Arkansas.”
Stephen W. Mahan, chief executive officer at MRMC, said he is willing to see what the future holds but is not optimistic that his facility and MCH will have enough patients.
“One of the four facilities here supports the Cherokees, and the other is part of the VA system, so they are somewhat insulated from that,” he said. “There is some concern about that, and that was our concern about why do you need two private hospitals in this town? But, ultimately the marketplace or government regulation might reduce that in some way. We both may flourish, but my own personal opinion is that I wouldn’t weigh that as probable.”
Mahan said part of his expectation is based on the number of empty beds at MRMC.
“On any given day, we still have another 120-something beds available,” he said. “And the next thing is, do you have the nurses to take care of the patients? As we all know, there is a huge nursing shortage.”
Mahan said his experience has been that having two hospitals like MRMC and MCH in the same community is not sustainable.
“In the community I came from, Selma, Ala., you had two hospitals there, and they competed very heatedly at times,” he said. “Basically what you ended up with was two weak hospitals. Ultimately what happened is that they merged the two into one and they had a stronger hospital. I know that MCH is saying their goal is to attract those patients that aren’t coming to MRMC, but my personal belief is that you are going to see more shifting of patients from one to the other.”
MCH is set to open during the first quarter of this year. The hospital was founded by a group of physicians who have been practicing at Muskogee Regional Medical Center. It is located at the intersection of Harris Road and Main Street.
Dr. Timothy Robison, a surgeon who first thought of the idea for MCH and has been a spokesman for the founders, said there is no need to fear that there are not enough patients for hospitals in Muskogee.
“Before we ever decided to do this, we determined in the mid-90s that the majority of our patients were going to Tulsa,” he said. “Over 60 percent of our Medicare-age group were leaving town, and we started this hospital in an attempt to compete with Tulsa. If 60 percent of the Medicare patients are going to Tulsa, just think of what the statistics are for those with insurance or those without insurance who just choose to go to Tulsa. We are simply offering them a second choice.”
Being at odds with MRMC is not something anyone at MCH wants, according to Director of Clinical and Ancillary Support Deb Smart.
“Our ultimate goal is provide the best health care to the community through cooperation with the other facility,” she said.
Long-time Bartlesville businessman Mark Roberts has been a driving force on the business side of the hospital.
Roberts said services that will be offered include an emergency room, a urologist, a gastroenterologist, a neurosurgeon, pain management, internists, family medicine, ENT (ear, nose and throat) services, and gynecology. MCH will not deliver babies, have a psychiatric ward, do orthopedics, offer cardiology, or do open-heart surgery.
Hospital facts
• Muskogee Regional Medical Center — 500,000 square feet, 329 beds, 90 doctors, 170 nurses, 904 total staff.
• Jack C. Montgomery VA Medical Center — 441,000 square feet, 91 beds, 69 doctors, 223 nurses, 960 total staff.
• Muskogee Community Hospital — 101,656 square feet, 45 beds, 24 doctors, and 60-65 nurses, 150 total staff (when it opens in the first quarter of this year).
• Three Rivers Medical Center — 105,000 square feet, no beds (outpatient clinic), nine doctors, 12 nurses, 135 total staff.
