Members of the Chase County Community Hospital board heard the first report last week on a study to develop a master campus plan for the hospital. 

The study is being conducted by ERDMAN Company of Westminster, Colo.

The board selected ERDMAN in April and the study kicked off in November. 

The first phase of the study looks at the market area and demographics of the region and assesses those strengths and weaknesses.

The study shows that Chase County residents provide a bulk of the hospital’s patient census. 

One of the challenges, the study said, centers on reducing out-migration to other hospitals. 

The study examined what hospitals benefit from this leakage out of Chase County. 

Great Plains Health in North Platte, the regional hospital for this area, benefits the most from leakage from Chase County. 

A positive side to that statistic, Hospital Administrator Steve Lewis noted, is that many of those patients start at CCCH and are later referred to Great Plains.  

The largest amount of Chase County leakage to area hospitals occurs with Perkins County Health Services in Grant. 

In 2016, they completed a multi-million dollar hospital addition and renovation, which was seen as a plus for drawing patients. 

Lewis said the study predicts that Chase County’s population will continue to grow at a positive pace while other area counties are predicted to decline slightly.

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