East Adams Rural Healthcare is a twenty-bed

Critical Access Hospital The Critical Access Hospital program is a United States federal program established in 1997 as part of the Balanced Budget Act. The program aims to offer small hospitals in rural areas to serve residents that would otherwise be a long distance fro ...

located in

Ritzville, Washington Ritzville () is a city in Adams County, Washington, United States. The population was 1,673 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Adams County. The city is part of the Othello, WA Micropolitan Area, which comprises all of Adams County, ...

, at the junction of Interstate 90 and US Route 395. Adams County Public Hospital District #2 operates the hospital in Ritzville, as well as medical

clinic A clinic (or outpatient clinic or ambulatory care clinic) is a health facility that is primarily focused on the care of outpatients. Clinics can be privately operated or publicly managed and funded. They typically cover the primary care needs ...

s in Ritzville and Washtucna, and is associated with the Ritzville, Lind, and Washtucna Volunteer

Ambulance An ambulance is a medically equipped vehicle which transports patients to treatment facilities, such as hospitals. Typically, out-of-hospital medical care is provided to the patient during the transport. Ambulances are used to respond to medi ...

Associations. Together, these organizations serve a area of eastern

Adams County, Washington Adams County is a county in the U.S. state of Washington. As of the 2020 census, the population was 20,613. The county seat is at Ritzville, and its largest city is Othello. The county was formed out of Whitman County in November 1883 and is ...

, and a district population of about 3,900. The hospital emergency department is a Level V Trauma Care Center, a Level II Cardiac Center, and a Level III Stroke Center; it serves its community, as well as accident victims from the adjacent major highways. The umbrella district was long known as "East Adams Rural Hospital", but on August 28, 2014, the Board of Commissioners voted to change the district's DBA to "East Adams Rural Healthcare" to better reflect the scope of its operations, in that the district was then acquiring, by gift, the skilled-nursing facility known as "Life Care Center of Ritzville", then an operation of

Life Care Centers of America Life Care Centers of America is the largest privately held long-term elderly care company in the U.S., with facilities across 28 states, and the third largest in the U.S. It is headquartered in Cleveland, Tennessee. History Life Care Centers of ...

. In early 2017, however, the district elected to close the Care Center, owing to the great drain it was creating on District finances. The district is thus now operating the hospital in Ritzville, the medical clinic in Ritzville, and a satellite medical clinic in nearby Washtucna. The District is active in a number of regional associations and partnerships. It is one of thirteen rural hospital districts in Washington State that compose the Washington Rural Hospital Access Preservation group, which the state legislature has funded for a three-year program to facilitate transition to value-based alternative payment methods aimed at helping small rural health-care facilities remain financially viable. The District is also a founding member of the five-district inter-local Grand Columbia Health Alliance, comprising five rural health-care public hospital districts in central-eastern Washington, a cooperative effort aimed at securing the advantages of size while allowing each member district to retain its independent identity.

External links

EARH home page

"Doctor-hospital fight roils Washington farming town" (Spokane ''Spokesman-Review'')

- Washington State Department of Health Hospital buildings completed in 1952 Hospitals in Washington (state) Buildings and structures in Adams County, Washington Ritzville, Washington {{Washington-hospital-stub

See also

External links