Since 2014, Bonner General Health in Sand Point, Idaho, has experienced a staggering 73% increase in the number of CT scans they perform annually.
This number is a direct result of the influx of population into the area. With only one CT scanner in the hospital to service outpatients and the emergency room, Bonner General saw an urgent need for expansion in order to better serve its patients.
“The amount of table time was becoming a problem, trying to juggle those time-sensitive emergencies, whether there are strokes or traumas, with those CT-guided procedures,” said Daniel Holland, Director of Radiology at Bonner General. “Outpatient volume was increasingly becoming a problem. Whether or not we have a patient already on the table should not dictate the outcomes for these time-sensitive emergencies.”
Located along the banks of Sand Creek in Sand Point, Idaho, Bonner General provides comprehensive medical services to patients in Northern Idaho, Eastern Washington and Western Montana—even up to the Canadian border.
“Our goal is to provide the best care to Sand Point and the surrounding area,” says Kristin Carlson, Marketing Specialist at Bonner General Health. “We are serving the people who live, work and thrive in our community, which is pretty special. I feel confident that our staff will provide the best care to anyone. It is really important that we're able to provide services not just for the 40,000-plus people in Bonner County, but beyond, because we are the only hospital within this geographical region.”
The Clock Starts Ticking
With a population base expanding ever outward, and more and more communities increasingly relying on Bonner for a variety of CT needs, it became clear that one system simply wasn’t enough. They would have to bring more systems online to properly serve their patient base.
Bonner General received two substantial grants to help fund their expansion project: The Sunderland Foundation and M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust.
The Sunderland Foundation played an integral part in providing money for the construction and remodel of the CT suites, while the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust funded half the cost of one CT machine, including helping with the cost of equipment service and staff training.
With the grants secured, an additional challenge quickly arose: some funding from the grants was set to expire at the end of the following year. That left only one year for Bonner General to complete the build of a new imaging center and CT suite and find a new location for the administration office. 
Typically, it’s not uncommon for such an extensive construction project to take years of planning, building and project management. The tight timeline on this particular project provided a challenge, and Bonner quickly turned to Cassling to see if it could be done.
“Brian Walker [Regional Vice President of Sales for Cassling] was the first one that I really started working with from Cassling and Siemens,” said Daniel, “and I really connected with him right off the bat. Brian was, I think, able to alleviate a lot of those concerns and really helped broker that relationship from the beginning.”
“We quickly created a standing construction meeting so we had our project management team involved,” said Brian. “We had our product sales executive involved, Jason Prater, on these weekly meetings to work with their contractor team. It was us giving them an idea of what we think we need to do to the room and then coming back and asking us how that system's going to fit and how that timeline is going to fit in terms of what they have to do to the space.”
“Construction began in February of 2022 and finished on August 1st,” said Daniel. “We broke ground on the new CT suite on September 6th, 2022 and, over the next three months, we were able to renovate the suite, get the machine placed, and have the project completed by mid-December 2022.”
The Results Speak for Themselves
Since opening their SOMATOM CT Suite in a grand opening ceremony last September, Bonner General has more than doubled their patient capacity, reducing wait times and improving the patient experience.
“We're now in a position where we can start to just organically grow again,” said Daniel. “And that's what I was concerned about. We were going to truly hit a cap on our growth and possibly start to lose market share because other places could get their patients in quicker. What I would suspect is that those monthly numbers and weekly numbers are going to slowly tick up as we have the ability to organically grow.”
Cassling and Bonner General worked together to ensure that the project was completed on time, enabling their imaging team to get back to creating the optimal patient experience their community counts on them to provide.
Whether it’s a CT scan or any other imaging procedure, Bonner General is well-positioned to serve its community for years to come.
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