Altru to Build New Hospital Within Current Columbia Road Campus

The prime location offers the best access for patients and opportunity for future development.

Grand Forks, N.D. – As the next step in its bold new era in care, Altru has decided the new hospital will be built on its Columbia Road Campus, north of the current hospital location. While the exact location is still being evaluated, Altru’s Board of Directors approved the campus location.

Altru’s master planning steering committee, in collaboration with ECG Consultants and JLG Architects, considered several location factors including:

• Proximity to complementary services and physicians making frequent trips from the clinic to the hospital
• Ease of access for patients and visitors, including access to major roads and the interstate
• Adequacy of land for current and future facilities and parking
• Disruption to ongoing operations during construction

“We have an incredible opportunity to continue the development of our Columbia Road Campus. With our proximity to features of the English Coulee and Sertoma Park, we also have the good fortune to integrate the city’s natural elements into our design to create a calm and healing environment. There is space for expansion and parking and excellent access from major roads and the interstate for our regional patients,” states Dennis Reisnour, Chief Strategy Officer.

Altru considered several alternative sites within Grand Forks, yet none met the requirements. These sites posed traffic complications, limited or complicated access for regional patients, lacked convenience to current Altru services, and needed costly site preparation to restructure the land.

New Era Next Steps

“Our bold new era marks a significant investment for the region,” states Brad Wehe, Chief Operating Officer. “We are committed to understanding the voice of our patients, physicians, staff, and all stakeholders. Together we will create a state-of-the-art healing environment that takes care of the entire region for decades to come.”

Altru will hold multi-day workshops through the planning and construction process with stakeholders from throughout the health system and in the community. These workshops will include concentrated conversations and hands-on activities focusing on the needs for space. Work is also being done to increase collaboration among providers to further enhance patient care and eliminate tasks that don’t directly provide value to the patient.

“As the needs of our patients, and our communities, change, it’s our responsibility to innovate so we can meet those needs for future generations,” states Wehe.

About Altru Health System

Altru Health System is a regional-owned, integrated system with a general acute care hospital, a specialty hospital, more than a dozen clinics in Grand Forks and the region, and a large home care network. It employs nearly 200 physicians and 4,000 staff and has an annual net operating revenue of more than $549 million. As the first member of the Mayo Clinic Care Network, Altru’s providers have access to clinically integrated tools extending Mayo Clinic’s knowledge and expertise to patients.