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Claremore Indian Hospital reports CAP accreditation, new endoscopy cabinet and ongoing power-system upgrades after April outage
Summary
Claremore Indian Hospital told the Cherokee Nation Health Committee it received high marks from the College of American Pathologists, installed an endoscopy drying cabinet and is working on a complex electrical upgrade after an April storm that caused a partial outage.
Tony Deckard, chief operating officer at Claremore Indian Hospital, told the Cherokee Nation Health Committee on May’s agenda that the hospital’s laboratory earned high praise during its College of American Pathologists accreditation inspection and the facility recently installed a new endoscopy drying cabinet to improve processing and prolong scope life.
Deckard said the CAP inspection — conducted every two years — focused on laboratory technologies and testing accuracy. “Our lab department’s amazing. They received high, high praise,” he told the committee.
The hospital also completed an identified improvement in central sterile: an endoscopy drying cabinet that supports unidirectional processing from dirty to clean areas. Deckard said Cherokee Nation Health Services is installing a similar cabinet at another site.
Deckard described how an April 29 storm caused widespread outages on Claremore’s west side and brought down about eight power poles. The hospital went on admission divert for a time and relied on backup generators for critical and life-safety systems. “We have a backup generator. It powers our critical, and life safety branch of the hospital,” Deckard said, adding that the generator supports operating rooms and post-anesthesia care areas but does not power the entire facility.
Committee members pressed on resilience and costs. Councilman Danny Callison asked whether third-party revenue reports in the packet include cost-to-operate comparisons; Deckard said the hospital evaluates those figures with finance staff and offered to follow up. Committee members also asked whether replacing the building would be more feasible than upgrades; Deckard said he is not qualified to make a final judgment but noted the facility dates from the 1970s and that “best case scenario would probably just be to start over and build another one.”
Deckard said a multi-stage electrical upgrade project has been underway for roughly a year to 18 months. The work includes producing a single-line diagram, determining electrical loads and specifying generator capacity to ensure more hospital systems remain powered in outages.
The presentation closed with committee members thanking staff for responding to the storm and for the hospital’s operational improvements.
