A foundation for success
The fountain outside Shoshone Medical Center is just one of many special beautification projects funded by the SMC Foundation.
KELLOGG — Providing quality medical while also serving a rural community to the best of its ability is a challenge that Shoshone Medical Center gladly accepts.
It’s this balancing act that paved the way for the SMC Foundation’s formation more than two decades ago. A move that has had a lasting effect on the hospital and continues to shape its future.
The SMC Foundation operates in a variety of ways. It is the hospital’s philanthropic branch, handling nearly all the critical care facility's community outreach while constantly looking for ways it can help the hospital improve, increase, or expand services.
“The Foundation’s main purpose is to support the hospital, hospital services, and the hospital’s staff,” SMC Foundation Director Kira Loughran said. “We serve as that front-facing, community-facing organization. We’re able to go into the community and really listen to what their needs and concerns are, and we can bring those back to the hospital and help them adapt to the changing healthcare needs of the Valley and the surrounding area.”
Through fundraising and pursuing grants, the nonprofit Foundation uses its funds to enhance the work of the hospital in the Silver Valley community.
“It’s a way for us to give to our hospital, to help with items that maybe they don’t have the funds for or aren’t in the capital budget,” Foundation board chairwoman Rachel Meyer said.
Projects like constructing the outdoor fitness equipment at the SMC Wellness Center, purchasing vital equipment for the hospital, including wheelchairs, defibrillators, and a secure blood unit storage compartment, as well as various beautification projects have all been completed using funds generated through the Foundation.
The Foundation coordinates with other community groups for events like the hospital’s free mammogram events, the Silver Valley Kids Fair, the Senior Health Fair, and the SAVE Coalition’s annual suicide prevention walk. The Foundation also offers annual scholarships for students entering the medical field and funding continuing education for hospital staff.
Loughran spoke of the Foundation’s ability to bridge the gap between the community and the hospital.
“Especially after Covid, there were so many people who were part of our more vulnerable population where finances got way stressed out, and then you have decreased access to care,” Loughran said. “How can we, the Foundation, support the community and the hospital to bridge that gap?”
The answer was relatively simple in nature, but more challenging in execution.
“It’s listening,” Loughran said. “And then help bridging healthcare inequalities.”
One of the Foundation’s more prominent and recent successes was the development of SMC Family Medicine in Smelterville. The Silver Valley community had long been vocal about getting another primary care facility that could see patients, sometimes, as fast as same-day. The SMC Foundation worked closely with the hospital to get SMC Family Medicine off the ground in the fall of 2017 and the clinic has continued to expand and add more clinicians in the, almost, seven years since.
Shoshone Medical Center CEO Paul Lewis returned to SMC in his current role in 2019 and he has seen the positive impact the Foundation has had on the hospital during his tenure — which included navigation through a pandemic.
“One of the great things about the Foundation is they help the hospital in multiple ways, but they really are a multiplier of services,” Lewis said. “For example, the Senior Health Fair and the Kids Health fair that we do annually, the Foundation provides the help and support so we can extend on the family practice and acute care hospital and meet the needs of the community in those areas.”
Expanding capabilities is a goal not easily achieved. It comes at a cost and nothing in this world is getting any cheaper.
To combat this, the Foundation is currently working on their strategic plan for the next few years, mapping out what they would like to accomplish with the hospital and what kind of financial need they are going to have in order to pull it off.
“With the changing demographics and transfer of wealth, people don’t necessarily have the ability to give as much cash as they did in the past, or finances have changed,” Loughran said. “We are going to be starting a lot more giving programs that’ll include grateful patient or in-kind programs, legacy giving, and it’ll be a way for the community to get reinvolved with the hospital and find a way to give that fits their needs.”
Grateful patient programs are initiatives that encourage patients who have had positive experiences at facilities like hospitals to donate.
“The strategic plan is where we have the opportunity to work with the community and to say, what’s working well? Where do we need to continue to grow services and are the additional services we need to provide?” Lewis said. “That’s where we see the most growth.”
Loughran can’t give away any secrets or plans until the Foundation Board and Hospital Board approves them, but she is excited for what SMC and the SMC Foundation will be doing in 2025.
“You’ll just have to wait and see,” she said with a smile.
The SMC Foundation is always looking for volunteers to help with events and other opportunities, for more information visit www.shoshonehealth.com.
