Greetings Rangely and surrounding community. Spring brings new milestones for Rangely District Hospital. I will provide quick updates on the progress that we have made and what is in store for us. The MRI project is complete, we have a new hospital board member, a sleep study program is gearing up and The Hospital Foundation has a new director.

Our MRI project is complete, open house held April 2nd, 2025. Thanks for attending and viewing our new addition. I would like to thank our board of directors for approving the project, Adams Management, FCI Construction, RTA Architects, Engineer Inspectors Jocelyn Mullin, Phil Vaughn, and GE for keeping the project on time. They all did a fantastic job in coordinating, construction, and completing the MRI suite. I would also like to thank our hospital staff and patients for their cooperation while the construction crews were in and out of the hospital. Also, for adapting to the disruption they might have encountered during the process. By adding this state-of-the-art service, patients will not have to travel for their MRI scans. They can have the done here locally. The instrument is called the 1.5T Signa Voyager to help improve patient comfort, including a wide bore, breath-free, motion-free technology. I am super excited to offer this service to you and your family.

Our hospital board had three vacancies. We would like to welcome Kurt Douglas as our newest board member. Kurt is a long-time Rangely native who retired as a teacher from Rangely School District. Since then, it has served on several boards in the community. I am excited for him to join our team. We will be appointing him in our next board meeting, then all office positions will be selected in the May meeting. Sam Tolley and Kieth Peterson were self-nominations who currently are on the board. With three vacancies and three applicants there was no need for an election this year.

Last year we had to put our sleep study program on hold until we purchased some new equipment. The new equipment is now available, and we will be starting our facility sleep studies towards the end of May 2025. We have teamed up with Dr. Matt Mckee from Roosevelt to oversee the program and provide the overreads. Tracy Voelckel will perform the studies. This service line will help so our patients do not have to travel out of town for sleep studies.

Our Hospital Foundation has hired a new Director. I would like to extend a warm welcome to Sierra Black. She has taken the reigns as the new director. Sierra recently has worked on the inpatient side of the hospital as the activity director for our long-term care unit. We have Sara Peterson, Taylor Allred, Carlene Cantrell, and a representative from the hospital board TBD in the May board meeting serving on the foundation board. A few of the projects the foundation is currently working on are the memorial tree in the entry way of the hospital, golf tournament in the fall, and Sunrise Park next to Eagle Crest. You can order a leaf or stone for the memorial tree $100 per leaf or $250 for a stone. Thanks to Mike Dillon for engraving the leaves. Its great to have a new director that can continue our foundation’s initiatives into the future.