Pullman Regional Hospital lays out expansion to emergency, surgical and primary care services

Matt Forge, superintendent and CEO of Pullman Regional Hospital, told the Pullman City Council on June 17 that the hospital will expand its emergency department, add surgical capacity and continue efforts to recruit primary-care and specialty clinicians.

"Less wait, less travel, more access to exceptional health care," Forge said in his presentation, summarizing the goals driving the multi‑year project.

The expansion plan Forge described would enlarge the hospital's emergency department, add one operating room, remodel outpatient and lab space, and create three mental‑health holding rooms. Forge said the hospital has nine board‑certified emergency physicians and that annual emergency‑department visits have held "steady" at more than 14,000. He told the council the hospital will submit its final proposal to the Washington State Department of Health on July 14, 2025, with contractor mobilization expected in September and construction completing in late 2027 or early 2028.

Why this matters: hospital leaders said the changes are aimed at reducing transfers and travel for care, easing overcrowding during high‑demand events (for example, game nights), and improving space to treat patients with acute behavioral‑health needs. The project is also intended to support more outpatient surgical procedures and to make clinical and operational workflows more efficient.

Forge outlined three main project objectives: expand emergency services (including space for patients experiencing mental‑health crises), expand surgical services (adding an operating room and improving flow to acute care), and strengthen primary‑care access. On the surgical side, he said the addition will help move procedures that increasingly are done as same‑day outpatient care and reduce bottlenecks in the hospital's med‑surg beds.

Forge described a phased construction approach designed to keep the hospital fully operational during work. He said the current plan reduced prior five phases into three and that the hospital intends to remain "full service ahead" throughout construction. The first moves will be laboratory relocations, followed by phased remodels. Forge said the new lab will have windows and be located above the emergency department.

On primary care and workforce, Forge said Pullman Regional has been consolidating local practices and integrating them with the hospital platform to stabilize access. He listed Palouse OB‑GYN and Palouse Pediatrics among groups participating in the system and said a family‑medicine residency affiliated with Washington State University has increased the local pipeline. Forge said the hospital has three internal‑medicine candidates under consideration and hosts a third‑year internal‑medicine resident part of the year to strengthen recruiting.

On electronic records and billing, Forge said the health system completed an Epic electronic medical record implementation more than two years ago and has seen improvements in revenue‑cycle performance; he said accounts receivable had fallen from the low‑70th percentile to 53 percent (a measure discussed in the presentation).

Council members asked several operational questions. Councilmember Parks asked about behind‑the‑scenes capacity for referrals, billing and records; Forge described efforts to colocate and align administrative teams after the Epic implementation. Councilmember Weller asked whether staff receive mental‑health training and how preventive care and chronic‑disease management fit into recruitment and population‑health strategies; Forge said about 70 percent of behavioral‑health scenarios present in primary care and described standard screening (PHQ‑2/PHQ‑9) and a goal of better handoffs into care plans and population‑health supports.

Forge said the hospital aims to keep more care local by pairing clinicians with expanded team supports — nutritionists, pharmacists, palliative care and behavioral health — to make recruiting more attractive and to keep complex care in Pullman. He also noted recent hires, including an acute‑care surgeon signed within days of the presentation.

Next steps: Forge said the hospital will submit the project to the Washington State Department of Health on July 14, 2025; Bowden (the construction manager) is expected to mobilize in September, with work beginning in late September or October and a project completion target of late 2027 to early 2028.

This presentation was informational; no council action was taken during the meeting.