This March, Sanford Health is celebrating a major milestone in Bemidji: the 10-year anniversary of its merger with North Country Health Services.
“When you live in the rural communities in Northern Minnesota, we’re fiercely independent up here. And so I’m sure that the tendency was to not affiliate and let’s just stay independent. But thank heavens that they did because there has just been strength in that affiliation,” said Kay Mack, Sanford Health Board Member.
That sentiment is borne out in the accomplishments of the past decade, and how the hospital system has grown services such as behavioral health, orthopedics, cancer and cardiology.
Survival rates are better
“We had a picture of the state with the death rate from heart attacks, and the worst case was deep red, and Beltrami County was deep red. Saving people’s lives from heart disease is all about time and getting the appropriate treatment meant a helicopter flight, and time is heart, muscle, and so people were not surviving,” said Dr. David Wilcox, Sanford Family Medicine Specialist in Bemidji. “The survival rates have gone way up and that red no longer exists in Beltrami County. So that ability to expand that service and really provide immediate care for our patients has been unbelievable.”
The Joe Lueken Cancer Center, which opened in 2018, is the epicenter of advanced cancer care in Northern Minnesota.
“If you have cancer and you need an infusion every week, it’s hard to travel two-and-a-half, three-and-a-half hours to get those things,” said Susan Jarvis, president & CEO, Sanford Health of Northern Minnesota.
“My next door neighbor was diagnosed with cancer. And what ended up happening is that … they had to drive over every single day for, I don’t remember how many weeks to Fargo for her to get treatments,” said Mack. “And now to know that those same treatments could have been received in Bemidji is just one of the things that really lifts me up and makes me really committed to Sanford. That’s just one really small example.”
Community investment in Bemidji
Sanford has invested over $75 million into the region since the merger, and more than doubled its number of employees from 900 to almost 1,900. Still, one of its biggest contributions came recently, with a pandemic response that was not part of any 10-year plan.
“I try to imagine what it would be like as a community hospital to get all of the things we needed for managing COVID-19: PPE, swabs to obtain tests, setting up a test center. Having a partner and in a relationship with an organization like Sanford has just eliminated all of those things. We have never lacked for PPE. We’ve never lacked for the equipment that we needed. And we were able to make dramatic expansion, really in a matter of days to our hospital, to provide service,” said Dr. Wilcox.
With one full decade under its belt, Sanford Health continues to look to the future of health care in the Bemidji region.
“Our goal in Bemidji is basically to provide the highest level of care that we’re able to provide to our community as close to their homes as possible.” said Jarvis.
“My goal in life was to be a rural family physician, and when I started that journey, I thought there may be limitations. But with the Sanford footprint and now digital medicine, we have many clinical trials going on right here in Bemidji for cancer care and other types of care. I have immediate access to specialists by phone or by video visit that I wouldn’t have had without a network of hospitalists and specialists. So I really feel like I’ve been able to practice state-of-the-art medicine, my entire career as a family physician in a small town,” said Dr. Wilcox.
For Bemidji and Northern Minnesota, this is just the start. Ten years have passed, but the future is brighter than ever.
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Posted In Bemidji, Community, Company News, Sanford Sports
