Billings Clinic cut the ribbon on two new units Thursday, including a 21-bed department where critically ill surgical patients can get full time monitoring and specialty treatment.
Surgeon Gordon Riha says this is the first dedicated surgical intensive care unit in Montana.
“With the ability to take care of these severely injured patients, we’re able to keep them close to home, close to their farms and ranches, instead of having to go to a big city that may be 500 or 600 miles away,” said Riha.
Right outside the new unit’s windows is the red H of a helipad, where emergency helicopters land with critically injured passengers.
Both the patient and helicopter’s destination can now be deliberated through the Billings Clinic’s other new unit: a control center full of monitors where staff can talk with providers, direct patient traffic and touch base with rural hospitals.
Philanthropic organization the Helmsley Charitable Trust donated more than $10 million to establish both the new communication center and the new surgical intensive unit, which is slated to open later this summer.
