A 51,000 square foot, 25-bed hospital backed by a rural healthcare group opens in Jenks next month.
"I wouldn't call this a specialty hospital. This is a fully licensed acute-care hospital that does have a primary focus on orthopedics and spine, but it also has ancillary services that it will offer as well," said Bristow Medical Center CEO Jan Winter Clark.
Part of the plan is for the Center for Orthopaedic Reconstruction and Excellence, or CORE, to help sustain the group’s rural hospitals.
"In the past, the large facilities in the more urban markets would reach its tentacles out to the smaller communities and then try to pull that volume back into the urban market," Clark said. "What we've tried to do is reverse that."
Clark said putting CORE in Jenks will supplement her rural hospitals’ income and attract doctors who may not be interested in those towns.
"I've been working for the last five to six years to recruit an orthopedic surgeon to either Bristow or Cushing, but for various reasons, it hasn't been sustainable," Clark said.
She said it’s also a shorter trip for rural patients in need of specialty care.
