Story County Medical Center of Nevada plans to build a new $13 million, 39,000-square-foot hospital on the southeast edge of Nevada to replace its current 55-year-old facilities.

Todd Willert, hospital administrator, said the relocation and reorganization reflect the changing needs of patients in the area. He said the hospital’s focus had shifted from inpatient acute care to outpatient services, such as laboratory tests and minor surgery, over the years.

“Eighty-five percent of our activity is outpatient related,” Willert said.

Willert said the new facility will be organized in a manner that puts outpatient-focused departments closer together in a more accessible location.

“Services such as the lab will be right off the main entrance,” Willert said. “The departments will be able to work off each other in one centralized location and will be much more efficient.”

The 18-bed replacement hospital will be built at the intersection of 19th Street and South G Street in Nevada.

The new hospital hopes to have a more efficient organization of departments and outpatient services as well as a helicopter pad directly outside of the emergency-room entrance. The landing site would be the only helipad directly attached to a hospital in Story County.

Andrew Zalasky, director of community relations for Mary Greeley Medical Center, said it was unknown whether the replacement hospital would affect the number of patients in the 220-bed Ames facility.

“We really have no position,” Zalasky said. “We receive and transfer patients from all over.”

The multimillion dollar project will be financed in part by the Story County Medical Center Endowment Foundation, which has currently raised $530,000 of its $1 million goal in pledges and commitments. A $600,000 donation from the Josephine Tope Trust, whose funds go toward projects aimed at improving the Nevada community, will also help finance the construction.

The remaining cost will be covered by hospital operations. Since the hospital was named as a “state necessary provider” as part of the Iowa Medicare Rural Hospital Flexibility Grant Program, the hospital receives a portion of its funding from Medicare.

Kevin Teale, communications director for the Iowa Department of Public Health, said hospitals such as Story County Medical Center gained necessary provider status by fulfilling criteria based on population, geographic and facility characteristics. The hospital must meet at least six of 11 characteristics.

Teale said since the new facility would be in the same county as the current hospital, the project will not be re-examined by the Iowa Health Facilities Council, the state board that reviews proposals for all large health-care building projects in the state. This exemption, as well as the current hospital’s small amount of inpatient acute care traffic, has caused some to question the necessity of the replacement facility.

Willert said inpatient traffic was an inaccurate representation of the hospital’s activity, however.

“If that’s all we did, they’re right,” Willert said.

“But what hospitals do has changed in the last 10 to 20 years.”

Nearly 40,000 people visit the hospital’s supported clinics each year in Nevada, Maxwell, Slater, Zearing and Ames. Willert said without the hospital’s support, the clinics would most likely not be in operation.

“[Inpatient care] is a very narrow definition of what a hospital is,” Willert said.