The Pride of the Plains

Photography by Jason Masters

New expansion signals start of bold new chapter

The first thing that happens as you walk through the front doors of Ozark Healthcare’s sparkling new expansion is the feel of your gaze pulled upward. Taking in the soaring reception area awash in light, your gaze meets the hypnotic hanging sculpture undulating above you. The abstract representation of the mountains and rivers for which the area is known sways gently by its tethers, recreating magically the mountain breeze and gentle water.

But there’s something else that this impressive work of art brings to mind. Made up as it is of many smaller pieces, the mid-air mosaic also gives a subtle nod to the thousands of physicians, administrators, medical providers and staff who have worked, practiced and led the health system through the years. Not to mention the generations of people who, looking to the hospital as a center point of civic pride, offered countless volunteer hours and millions in donations, dreaming of a time when a building such as the 100,000-square-foot expansion would become a reality.
“We wanted the atrium to reflect symbolically what we feel like our place is in the Ozarks,” said Josh Reeves, Ozark Healthcare’s Vice President of Development. “The sculpture in the lobby shows what we feel as the healthcare provider of South-Central Missouri. It was very important for us to be able to produce this building in service to the community. Every time people walk in here, we want them to know it’s a special place.”
“Special” doesn’t begin to describe the new medical building, created to bring multiple medical specialties under one roof and would be the envy of any health system of any size in the country. Everywhere you look along its wide, gleaming hallways, you see amenities to improve the patient experience: state-of-the-art examination and treatment areas, efficient and friendly check-in and reception, comfortable waiting rooms, a coffee shop and a cafeteria.

Reeves, who’s spent a portion of every working day for the past two years overseeing the construction rise out of the ground, said even he is taken aback by the finished project.

“I was there on the original planning committee that hired the architect and did the master plan all the way through until we cut the ribbon. I’ve literally spent hundreds, if not thousands of hours on this project,” he said.

“You go through the process like this and, rightly so, you have to be critical all the time of all the decisions that are made. Sometimes it’s not fun when you go through the process of building a building like this, but now that it’s finished and I can look back and reflect on it, we’ve done something very special for the community. There’s nothing like it in south-central Missouri or really anywhere in the Ozarks.”
The three-story building, which was dedicated in February, brings together multiple specialties into various clinics. These include Ozarks Healthcare Endocrinology; Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT); General Surgery; Infectious Disease; Dermatology; Neurology; Rheumatology; Urology; Heart and Lung center; Orthopedics and Spine; Pain Management; and Podiatry. In addition, Ozarks Healthcare’s Imaging, Lab, Patient Financial Services and Registration departments are also located here.

“We’ve basically tried to concentrate the staff in a location that makes them readily accessible for patients, particularly those needing to access multiple specialties,” said Dr. Andy McGee, Cardiothoracic surgeon and Ozarks Healthcare’s Chief Medical Officer. “The facility itself is better and more modern, both in the flow of patients from the parking lot all the way through to the provider and then back to wherever they need to go, whether it’s laboratory, X-ray or another consult.

“The whole idea behind the mechanics of the patient flow in and out is much more efficient, much more accessible, as well as having the majority of the providers located in one area. That also makes it easier for the providers if they need to do consultations with each other related to a patient, both in information or diagnostic studies and things of that nature.”
McGee, who’s been with the hospital for nine years, said one reason the new spaces work so well is that hospital administration went to great lengths to get feedback from physicians and staff on how to design the optimum experience. Medical personnel, in turn, solicited feedback from patients on what they’d like to see.

“Even before we decided we were going to do a medical office building, there were numerous inquiries to the public,” McGee said. “Patients would come to see us, and we’d send them queries and surveys. We’d also ask the public in general about what they wanted from their hospital. We took that information, sat down and had multiple interdepartmental focus groups review what patients said they wanted and needed.”
“Initially, we weren’t sure if we should upgrade the hospital or just upgrade the existing clinics. But working through the various physician groups, nursing groups and ancillary services groups, we all got together with the administration and eventually came to the same realization that we needed to have a central location with easy access for patients to get the care they needed. The product of that turned out to be the expansion.”
The $70 million project has not only redefined medical care in the region, but it completely changes the environment in which that care is administered locally, said Tom Keller, Ozarks Healthcare’s President and CEO.

“The buildings we had in the past were never truly indicative of the number and types of specialists, physicians and providers that we had here,” he said. “When I arrived here eight years ago, you couldn’t even see the hospital behind the trees and the houses. Well, that’s all gone now. Now, it actually looks like we have a medical center.

“And it couldn’t have come online at a better time for us. One of the things that makes healthcare special is the relationships you have with the people you work with. During the onset of the pandemic, that was limited; you might have worked with people in your department, but you didn’t have the opportunity to go down to a cafeteria and connect with other people that you might talk to on the phone and that kind of thing. This brings back those opportunities to connect.”

The Ozarks Healthcare’s expansion is also the healthcare system’s boldest beacon yet for attracting and retaining medical talent. As the largest employer in the area, Ozarks Healthcare represents between 28 and 30 percent of the local economy. When one factors in the clinics spreading out nearly 50 miles in every direction, the impact is even more massive.

Keller said while keeping staffed is a huge challenge overall (Ozarks Healthcare supports a payroll between $80 and $90 million), the new facility offers the hospital an advantage in recruiting medical talent. West Plains has always rated high on the quality of life scale, and now the new facility will add a state-of-the-art workplace to match, the importance of which cannot be overstated in the current labor market.

“Ozarks Healthcare is more than just a local hospital; we have a huge impact on the regional economy. As we grow, so do individual businesses, which have really been sputtering the last couple of years due to the pandemic,” he said.

“This building now gives us a real advantage. When we bring a physician into this space, it is as nice as you can find anywhere in the country — a beautiful space that’s also very functional. All of us want to work in a place like that. I think it will have a big impact on our ability to recruit, retain and attract people to West Plains and the surrounding area.”

Dr. Praveen Datar, a pulmonologist who 18 months ago was looking for the perfect place for his medical practice, agreed the new expansion gives Ozarks Healthcare a big leg up in attracting staff. However, he said it had less to do with the eye candy of the place and more about giving physicians the opportunity to do their best work through collaboration.

“It gives a more corporate look to the hospital, and obviously, it gives us fancy rooms, which is nice,” he said. “There’s good spacing, good aeration, good lighting for patients so that they’re not overcrowded. And that’s all important, but it’s not just about appealing to the senses. At the end of the day, you know, we’re judged on how much we’re doing for the patient. The other professionals, the doctors and staff members and the services that we offer, make more of a difference than just a building.

“But what the design does do is it makes all of the physicians very accessible to one another. All of our offices are side by side, so it makes it easy to consult. Cardiology, even though we were in the same building previously, their offices were on one side of the building and ours were on the other side. It was very difficult to communicate; sometimes we’d have to text. Now, I just walk over to an adjacent room.”

For everything that’s new here, there is still in the medical office building plenty that lauds the past. A small chapel right off the lobby speaks to the faith of Ozarks Healthcare’s founders and the compassionate care they strove to deliver. A few steps from there sits the cafeteria, Grill 59, so named in honor of the original West Plains Memorial Hospital constructed in 1959, a 50-bed operation that felt as dazzling and impressive at its opening as the new building does today.

And throughout, you find the resolute, pioneering spirit that launched Ozarks Healthcare and dared to dream big about the future, carried in the hearts, minds and talents of the hundreds of people who work here.

“The hospital made a promise to the community that we would create something special,” Reeves said. “This wasn’t something in the beginning that was easy to convince the community to do because we had several challenges we had to overcome. We had to completely close a city street. We also had to have a group of community lenders step up and write a large construction loan — seven or eight banks were involved in that. This wasn’t without risk.

“But we made that promise to the community, and I think the response so far is that we’ve really delivered on that. The way this place looks and feels represents what we think we’ve become as an organization. We’re not just a little rural hospital with a few clinics anymore. We are a thriving healthcare system.”