Winneshiek Medical Center will nearly double its capital budget in a few years

Winneshiek Medical Center's 2014-2015 net gain of $3.8 million dollars is certainly good news for the hospital.

But WMC Chief Administrative Officer Lisa Radtke cautions, "We need to reinvest it."  The hospital has averaged $2 million to $3 million a year recently in capital spending on new equipment and other improvements.  But for its 2016-2017 fiscal year, the hospital has set a tentative capital improvement budget of $4.9 million.

A big part of the spending will be on a new electronic health records software package.  Winneshiek Medical Center has gotten a total of $1.3 million in federal grants for the equipment, but just a downpayment on an updated software package will be $300,000.

Most of the new software expense will occur in the hospital's 2018 fiscal year--the year the federal government is requiring all hospitals and health care organizations in the country to meet the new standards.