Sanford Health Equip strengthens rural reach, integration

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – Sanford Health Equip’s acquisition of Great Plains Restorative Services in Bismark and Dickinson, N.D., gives the company a larger footprint to make existing services more sustainable across a spread-out service area.

“As we look at western North Dakota, it is such a rural footprint,” said Doug Okland, vice president of health services operations for Sanford Health. “We had very similar missions, but also very similar struggles related to staffing and transportation and delivery of products and services to patients in that rural footprint.”

Sanford Health Equip now has about 30 locations across North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa.

Consistent coverage

Together, for example, Sanford Health Equip and Great Plains can join their respiratory therapists (RTs) into a larger department of four RTs and improve coverage and prevent burnout.

“We're also able to maintain full staffing (respiratory therapists) without needing temporary staffing,” Okland said. “We’ve become more sustainable and more consistent.”

More volume, more options

With a larger combined patient base, Sanford Health Equip can also reevaluate the products and services it offers.

Sanford Health Equip and Great Plains provide many of the same services, including durable medical equipment (DME), enteral products, orthotics and prosthetics (O&P) and assistive technologies (AT). That overlap, Okland says, will allow Sanford Health Equip to strengthen services and perform more work locally rather than outsourcing it.

Some services previously offered by Great Plains, like home access and vehicle modifications, will be discontinued.

Closing the loop

Great Plains and its patients will benefit from Sanford Health Equip’s more integrated care model. As part of Sanford Health, physicians can communicate through the electronic medical record, place orders and follow up with Sanford Health Equip directly, helping reduce gaps after discharge or between clinical visits.

“It’s not a drop point where they leave the hospital or they leave their physician and then the physician has to just assume they’re following through on whatever DME was ordered,” he said. “We’re actually integrated.”