Industry Pulse: Even a boom town is scaling back hospital

North Dakota’s population boom is no match for trend toward smaller hospitals

A $100 million replacement hospital in booming western North Dakota won’t be as large as some folks expected.
Rendering courtesy of St. Joseph’s Hospital

As the quaint prairie town of Dickinson continues to boom amid North Dakota’s oil-producing “gold rush,” its schools, roads and stores are getting bigger. Housing is expanding rapidly. It’s all part of trying to keep up with a population that has nearly doubled to 30,000 since the 2010 U.S. Census.

Yet, it looks as if the country’s shift to providing care in outpatient settings is even stronger than North Dakota’s growth.