Kootenai Health, MultiCare to build 30-acre medical campus in Post Falls
Mar. 12—With goals of eventually opening a new hospital, Kootenai Health and MultiCare are building a new 30-acre medical campus in Post Falls.
The expanded partnership between the two health care nonprofit companies will connect Kootenai Health's services in Coeur d'Alene and MultiCare's presence in Washington at Deaconess and Valley hospitals. The "Prairie Medical Campus" will be located at the south-east corner of Highway 41 and Prairie Avenue in the north-east corner of Post Falls.
"Working together we do what we can't do alone," MultiCare CEO Bill Richardson said. "The opportunity and challenge in health care is best served in partnership."
Richardson added that the first phase of the project should be completed "fairly rapidly" in the next two to three years.
That phase will include a micro-hospital with a 12-room emergency department, imaging services and rooms for overnight patients. A medical office space built in the initial construction will have a new ambulatory surgery center and house physician practices for Kootenai Clinic and independent physicians.
Kootenai Health spokesperson Caiti Bobbitt said that many Kootenai clinics are at full capacity at their Coeur d'Alene facilities, and the increased access to health care in the region "will be significant."
As Post Falls' population grows, the partners hope to expand the facility to a full hospital.
The latest population estimate for Post Falls is 48,500 people. Five years ago, the city had 39,250 people, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's estimate of county populations.
"The Prairie Medical Campus in Post Falls is a transformational investment in the future of our region's health care," Kootenai Health CEO Jamie Smith said in a statement. "It is our mission to serve this rapidly growing part of our community. We are excited to partner with MultiCare; working together allows us to build on the strengths of both organizations for the benefit of our patients. It allows us to create something bigger, faster and better in the Post Falls to Liberty Lake corridor than either of us could alone."
MultiCare and Kootenai Health jointly purchased land for the project several years ago, but the long-planned expansion stalled during the COVID-19 pandemic, Bobbitt said. While MultiCare provides a financial investment to the project, the campus will be under Kootenai Health administration and branding. Both organizations declined to answer what the financial cost is to each nonprofit for creation of the campus.
MultiCare and Kootenai health previously collaborated to start a joint electronic health record system and on two urgent care locations in Coeur d'Alene and Hayden.
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