In 2007, the Hillsboro Area Hospital Board of Directors and leadership team invited 125 community members to take part in a series of ‘visioning’ sessions and participated in the process to design the hospital’s future.

One major component resulting from the visioning sessions was the need for a new emergency department that would help us better serve the growing demands for emergency care. We also identified the need to better accommodate the privacy and confidentiality requirements and standards set for healthcare providers today.

The 12,180 square foot emergency room interior space improves efficiency and the overall experience for the patient and their family.

Another outcome from our community visioning meeting was the recommendation that Hillsboro Are Hospital become a leader in supporting a healthy environment in the county. To accomplish this, we engaged the services of Vertegy, a nationally know environmental consulting firm, to work with the architects, contractor and hospital through every step of the development process and provide us with a design, procurement and construction consulting services for a GREEN and sustainable facility.

A green and sustainable facility design and construction involves conserving natural resources, enhancing the quality of work life for our staff and significantly reducing life cycle costs. One of the unique aspects about the project is that 50% of the materials demolished were recycled and reused in the revitalization.

HAH has set an environmental goal to attain award winning status with this by project by following direction and recommendations from Vertegy. We are striving to become a Gold Standard LEED facility, (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), and join the other four hospitals in the nation that have achieved this level of environmental recognition.

There were other extremely positive directions that came out of the meeting. A sampling of the directions provided to the hospital for improving the lives of the residents of Montgomery County include; continuing to provide affordable personalized care, improving traffic flow and parking site access, increasing operational efficiencies through technology, increase specialty care as needed in the area and improve patient areas.

With the success of the first ‘visioning’ session, another session was held September 23, 2010. Prior to the session, an awards ceremony was held in front of the education center classroom.

Special recognition was presented in the form of two plaques given to the former Rep. Gary Hannig and State Senator Deanna Demuzio. Both were instrumental in helping develop the partnership of Lincoln Land Community College and HAH. The new classrooms are being used for healthcare and education programs.

Dr. Charlotte Warren, president of Lincoln Land Community college, was present and thanked all for following the ‘vision’ and stated, we started offering classes in the basement of the outpatient clinic and now we have this state of the art facility.

Hillsboro Area Hospital is an independent, Joint Commission Accredited, not-for-profit hospital and not part of any other health care organization. We are also a Critical Access Hospital or CAH, which means the Federal Government recognizes Hillsboro Area Hospital as a rural, acute care hospital that has bet federal program certification requirements, provides standard services maintains a daily in-patient count of 25 or fewer and the average length of stay that does not exceed four days.