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MORRISON – Work on a $14 million two-story addition to Morrison Community Hospital continues despite slight delays.
The project was expected to finish in January 2026, but Morrison Community Hospital CEO Pam Pfister said this week that utility work delays have pushed the completion date to May 2026. Despite those delays, she said work is moving ahead.
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“They are busy working on the retaining wall, and that means they have got quite a bit of the pier work done,” Pfister said. “The elevator shaft is now concluded and they’re finalizing the southwest stairwell. Once they get that retaining wall done, they’ll begin to infill, and we are scheduled for steel delivery on July 14.”
Each floor of the addition will be about 11,000 square feet, doubling the size of the clinic’s current footprint. The first floor will be used for primary and urgent care services, with 22 exam rooms, three care team workstations and one procedure room.
“At this point, we’ll have what we consider the covered parking, and that will be visible from the public view,” Pfister said. “And then the first story, which will fall in line with our current rural health clinic, that space is being completed as we speak.”
The second-floor addition will connect to the hospital’s medical-surgical unit and remain “an open canvas” for future expansions.
“We’re having internal discussions on what the best use for that space would be,” Pfister said. “It’s highly probable that it could be used for Outpatient services.”
Pfister said the construction has not disrupted the hospital’s regular operations.
“We’ve been very fortunate that because it’s all new construction, it doesn’t hinder any of the current operations,” Pfister said. “We kind of navigated a little bit of parking early on in the project, but that has now settled in.”
The project is still on track with its original $14 million budget and is being funded through existing cash reserves. Pfister said the addition is meant to address the hospital’s increasing patient volume.
That volume has more than doubled since 2019 due to multiple expansions. The first major project in 2022 added an emergency room, more beds, operating rooms, and upgrades to radiology, lab, and clinic areas, all of which enabled the hospital to accommodate more patients. A subsequent expansion in 2023 added a third operating room, further increasing capacity.
“Space is premium right now, and we’ve pretty much exhausted all space available to us on the premises,” Pfister said. “When the project’s done, the primary care and the walk-in clinic will move out to that new, expanded area, and the specialty services will stay in the current footprint, which happens to be about 12,000 square feet.”
The hospital’s addition is also expected to bring about 10 full-time positions to the hospital, including the addition of Dr. Trever Troutman, a Morrison native.
“We have already filled two of those positions,” Pfister said. " Those are nursing positions working with our primary care team. He [Troutman] will be joining our team on Sept. 2. Dr. Woods’ retirement date has been identified as Sept. 25, so that’ll be perfect timing for bringing Dr. Troutman on board."
Pfister said Woods’ patients have been notified of his retirement and their primary care options, although she is confident that Troutman can take on “a significant portion of that patient population.”
Looking ahead, Pfister said the hospital plans to grow its primary care services to better support long-term health, especially for the aging population, as about 20% to 25% of neighboring Carroll County residents are older than 65 and often face chronic health conditions.
“We’re excited about this addition and being able to provide the services that we have here to our community and the surrounding area,” Pfister said.
Morrison Community Hospital derives its revenue from its services, Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements, third-party payers, the self-insured and the hospital taxing district, which includes townships in and around Morrison, as well as the nearby communities of Lyndon and Fenton.
The hospital, at 303 N. Jackson St., provides emergency services; radiology, pharmacy and lab services; medical and surgical inpatient services; rural health clinics for primary and urgent care; specialty physician services in rheumatology, psychiatry, podiatry, endocrinology, otolaryngology, gastroenterology, cardiology, gynecology, pulmonology, urology, dermatology and neurology; inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation; a diabetes program; a skin care clinic; and a wound care program.