Lamb Healthcare Center
The Lamb Healthcare Center is composed of three parts: a Family Medicine Practice, a Home Health Practice, and the County Hospital.
Find information on the County Hospital below.
Lamb Healthcare Center serves not only the residents of Littlefield, but everyone in Lamb County. The hospital is located at 1500 S. Sunset and is owned by Lamb County and supported by Lamb County tax dollars.
The hospital opened on August 1, 1979 as Littlefield Medical Center, under a management contract with a national hospital operater, Hospital Affiliated, Inc. Over the years, three other management companies were involved with the hospital, prior to the Hospital Authority's resuming daily control in October, 1988. In 1991, the voters of Lamb County petitioned for the hospital to become a county hospital.
Lamb Healthcare Center is open 24 hours a day and is staffed by medical professionals. The hospital owns and operates the Lamb Healthcare Family Medicine Clinic which is manned by four physicians: Dr. Kelly Klein, Dr. Isabel Molina, Dr. Tony Hedges, and Dr. Jason Lentz, and Ruan Reast, family nurse practitioner, and a professional support staff.
Community medical services provided by the hospital include trauma, emergency room, general surgery, outpatient services, OB services, skilled nursing facility, lab and x-ray, and acute care. Besides operating the clinic, the hospital also operates Lamb Healthcare Home Health.
The current administrator is JoNell Wischkaemper, and the administrative team includes Cindy Klein, controller, and Vickie Ritchie, assistant director of nurses. The hospital is staffed by approximately 130 employees.
The average daily census at the hospital is 14, but it is not unusual to have 23 or 24 patients. The hospital is staffed to handle 20 patients per day, and the maximum capacity is 42 patients. The hospital delivers 9 to 15 babies each month, and handles anywhere from 12 to 24 surgical procedures each month. The hospital routinely has 350 to 400 emergency room visits each month.
Lamb Healthcare Center operates with an annual budget of approximately $10 million of which $1.1 million is from county taxes.
The hospital is governed by a board of directors made up of residents from across Lamb County. Many of the members have served for several years.
Lamb Healthcare Center is constantly upgrading equipment and computer software. It is currently in the middle of a major paving project. A contractor is replacing the drives around the hospital and improving all of the parking lots around the hospital. The firm of Parkhill Smith and Cooper is handling the engineering for the major improvement project.
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