No.2, Skaggs Community Health Center

For the second year in a row, Skaggs Community Health Center has been named one of the fastest-growing companies in the Ozarks.
While preserving its rich history and its legacy of community support and involvement, Branson-based Skaggs has been able to grow and prosper in the competitive health care industry while meeting the needs of a growing and prospering area.
Skaggs’ gross revenues grew from $90 million in 2000 to nearly $232 million in 2004.
Established in 1950 by founders Estella and Marion B. Skaggs, the original hospital building held 25 beds. Since the Branson boom of the early 1990s, renovations have brought the number of beds to 132 and expansion has enabled the hospital to reach patients in Stone and Taney counties as well as adjoining counties in Missouri and Arkansas through its 19 satellite medical clinics.
In the last decade, Skaggs has added a new critical care unit, emergency room, parking garage and conference rooms, and in 2000, the $20 million Skaggs Outpatient Center was introduced. A four-story parking garage was added in 1999. This month, renovation will be complete on the administrative building, returning it to its original purpose of inpatient services. The administration offices will be moved to accommodate a 29-bed unit that includes 13 inpatient rehabilitation beds. The cost of this project is $2.25 million. Once the renovations are complete, the hospital will have capacity for 192 beds.
In the future, a five-story patient tower, expandable up to four stories, will be added, along with a cancer center to match the hospital’s cutting-edge cardiac care unit, according to Skaggs’ Administrator/CEO Bob Phillips.
Since the hospital is landlocked, Phillips said it’s necessary to build up rather than out. Future projects will be built on 40 acres located across Highway 62 west of Skaggs. A parking lot has already been built in the area, and construction begins this year on the orthopedic-neurological building, with groundbreaking just a few weeks away.
With more than 1,000 employees, the hospital is Branson’s largest employer, according to the Branson Lakes Area Chamber of Commerce. Only five years ago, the hospital employed 738.
This year, a third satellite clinic will be added between Branson West and Kimberling City, said Mary Jo fisk, communications coordinator. The new clinic will hold office space for four specialists as well as housing the physical therapy and occupational therapy services. “The Branson West Clinic will continue to offer cardiac rehab and pulmonary rehab,” fisk said. The new clinic will be in the Greenwald Building and will be located next to the Stone County Health Department. The move will be complete in late April. In addition, an MRI unit and CT scan will become available at one of the satellite clinics, most likely the Branson West location.
On the technology end, Skaggs is improving its efficiency by partnering with GE to reduce paperwork for nurses and give physicians access to records and test results from their home computers. It will eliminate paper records at the hospital and replace them with computerized tablets, laptops and a computer in every patient room by 2007.
Skaggs, which is governed by a board
of trustees through an elected board of directors, receives no tax dollars and is supported by private donors.