By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
The Barton County Commission had to sign off on but will not directly be involved in a Rural Hospital Innovation Grant sought by The University of Kansas Health System - Great Bend Campus. The grant is funded with $10 million in federal COVID-19 dollars that have been allocated to states to improve and increase services in rural hospitals. Campus CEO John Worden said the Great Bend hospital is one of about a dozen applicants around Kansas.
"The state was trying to find ways to make sure we utilized those dollars in ways that met the conditions that were federally set," he said. "A lot of them were relating to healthcare, so the state looked at it as an opportunity to open up this particular grant, which is rural."
All applications require approval at the county level, and the Barton County Commission voted 5-0 to approve the application Tuesday morning. The hospital will provide two dollars for every one dollar of the grant. The Great Bend application is requesting $500,000 in grant money for a $1.5 million remodel of the hospital's pharmacy.
"The way that translates for a customer is it allows the infrastructure for us if we do this potential remodel, to be able to do a higher level of quality of what we call injectable products, so doing IVs and different types of things for patients needing different types of outpatient treatments," Worden said.
In accordance with House Bill 2208, 100 of the 105 counties in Kansas meet the rural requirement for the grant. Other guidelines require any projects using grant funds to begin and be completed in 2024.