Hobart Oklahoma > Elkview General Hospital

Elkview General Hospital is located in the north part of the City of Hobart. The hospital neighbors with the Kiowa County Health Department to the west. Directly across the street east of the hospital (formerly Village Pharmacy) is a new outpatient physical therapy department which will be used by hundreds of patients from throughout southwest Oklahoma. Photographs immediately to the right of this text show the department's gym and reception area.

Visiting specialists in various fields augment the practices of local physicians to provide excellent care for area citizens.

Elkview General Hospital is a 38 bed, short-term general hospital serving approximately 10,000 people in the Hobart area. The hospital is county-owned, and operated by the public trust Kiowa County Hospital Authority. It was constructed at a cost of 1.3 million dollars in 1968 utilizing matching Hill-Burton grant-in-aid funds, along with general obligation and revenue bonds. The hospital is operated by a five person Board of Control appointed by the Kiowa County Board of County Commissioners. Hospital Board members represent most communities in Kiowa County.

Elkview’s active medical staff comprises four family practice physicians and one general surgeon. Three full time physician assistants staff the emergency service working under the supervision of the active physician staff. Anesthesia is covered by one full time certified registered nurse anesthetist. Physicians on the consulting medical staff conduct clinics at the Hospital covering cardiology, ophthalmology, and orthopedic services. A full time radiology group located in Tulsa, Oklahoma interprets most diagnostic exams in the Radiology Department by way of the Internet.

Many changes have occurred over the years at Elkview General Hospital in keeping current with new technology, the most significant being the addition of a new radiology department. The 6,000 square foot wing consists of a new, latest generation 64 slice Toshiba CT scanner with a state-of-the-art Vital Images workstation capable of phenomenal images. The Toshiba CT will scan the entire body in about twenty seconds and reconstruct and process the 2,000 plus image data sets in less than 5 minutes. The scanner was purchased with a cardiology package capable of CT Calcium scoring of the coronary arteries and CT Angiography including the difficult coronary angiogram (CCTA). At the time of this writing the Elkview General Hospital radiology department is the only one capable of CT angiography in the western half of the state.

Elkview General Hospital’s standard x-rays are performed in one of our two R&F rooms using CR (digital imaging) technology. X-Ray images are captured on a CR cassette and processed through our new high speed Konica Minolta reader. The digital images are then processed at one of our two workstations and sent to an extremely fast and robust PACS (picture archive and communication system). Once an image is stored in PACS, which is just milliseconds after being sent from the workstation, they can be accessed on line immediately by any physician anywhere in the world via the Internet. All that’s needed is viewing software automatically downloaded from the Hospital’s PACS server to the physician’s computer and assignment of a user name and password by the Department Manager. Our Ultrasound lab is capable of performing the full range of ultrasound exams including echocardiograms. Our Toshiba Nemio unit is connected to the PACS. All staff techs are trained in not only x-ray and CT, but also in ultrasound giving us excellent 24/7 coverage.

Our nuclear medicine department features a dual head prism gamma camera. This camera performs well over three hundred nuclear studies per year including bone scans, heart stress test, gallbladder scans, lung scans and GI bleed studies. With this new technology Elkview General Hospital’s Radiology Department is “filmless.” All images from all modalities (x-ray, CT, nuclear medicine, and diagnostic ultrasound) are digitized and stored on PACS allowing immediate access throughout the Hospital on workstation viewers, and by any physician anywhere with an Internet connection.

Elkview General Hospital's latest technological improvement, a Toshiba MRI scanner, has been installed and operational since June 2009. The ultra short bore 1.5 Tesla high field magnetic resonance imaging system provides optimal imaging performance and patient comfort features. The short bore scanner is designed to help alleviate claustrophobia often experienced in MRI machines. Toshiba's patented Pianissimo noise reduction technology effectively reduces scan noise by 90 percent to provide patients with a less stressful exam.

In addition to inpatient hospital services, Elkview Home Health offers a full range of services for those patients that are home bound. For those patients qualifying for Medicaid services, Home Care of Elkview offers custodial, hospice, and nursing care.

Being one of the larger employers in the county, Elkview General Hospital’s staff totals approximately 250 employees. The annual payroll approaches six million dollars. Having the diagnostic capabilities of much larger facilities, the hospital is still small enough to offer very personalized care. Our motto, Caring People...Caring for People, is a way of life for our nursing staff, and something patients in Southwestern Oklahoma come to know quickly and appreciate.

Community Works > Health Care

Elkview General Hospital