Sanford Health plans to build Rapid City medical center and go head to head with Monument Health
Rapid City, SD (South Dakota Searchlight) Sanford Health announced Monday that it will use a $300 million gift from its namesake philanthropist, Denny Sanford, to build a medical center in Rapid City.
Bill Gassen, president and CEO of Sanford Health, announced the gift during a Rapid City event that drew numerous local and state dignitaries.
“This philanthropic investment will strengthen health care in this community and across the entire region,” Gassen said.
The move will increase competition between Sanford Health and Monument Health. Monument is a regional system that operates a hospital in Rapid City, plus additional facilities there and in 13 other communities in western South Dakota and eastern Wyoming.
The 89-year-old Denny Sanford made his fortune as the owner of First Premier Bank and Premier Bankcard. The speakers at Sanford Health’s Monday announcement included Miles Beacom, CEO of Premier Bankcard.
“Competition is always great,” Beacom said. “The level of service to the patients is going to skyrocket. And that’s what people want to see in Rapid City and the region: Continue to improve and challenge each other.”
Monument Health President and CEO Paulette Davidson responded to South Dakota Searchlight with a written statement calling Sanford’s planned facility in Rapid City “a new hospital.” Davidson said Monument has been a “consistent and supportive” presence in the Black Hills for 45 years and will “remain here for generations to come.”
“Monument Health is proud to reaffirm our commitment to the region,” Davidson’s statement said. “As we navigate this new era, our hope is that any new health systems will join our decades-long effort to deliver high-quality care to everyone, and have a positive impact on our communities. Above all, at Monument Health, we will continue to make a difference, every day.”
The Sanford Black Hills Medical Center campus will be a 480,000-square-foot facility with 168 inpatient beds in southwest Rapid City, adjacent to the Black Hills Orthopedic and Spine Center. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2027 with completion anticipated by 2030. The campus will include an emergency department, intensive care unit, oncology center, women’s health services with a labor and delivery unit, and children’s services.
Denny Sanford has now given nearly $2 billion to Sioux Falls-based Sanford Health since 2004, helping it grow into the largest rural health system in the United States. The system has 55,000 employees and serves over 2 million patients and nearly 425,000 health plan members across the upper Midwest. The system also includes 56 hospitals, 288 clinic locations, 147 senior care communities, 4,000 physicians and providers, and nearly 1,500 active clinical trials and studies.
The construction of a medical center in Rapid City continues an expansion into the community that Sanford Health has been accelerating since last year, when the health system partnered with the Black Hills Orthopedic and Spine Center, Black Hills Surgical Hospital, Black Hills Urgent Care, and Black Hills Surgery Center of Wyoming. Recently, Black Hills Plastic Surgery and Creekside Medical Clinic, both in Rapid City, joined Sanford Health.
Sanford Health said it intends to spend an additional $10 million in South Dakota’s Black Hills region over the next decade, including programming to foster students’ interest in health care professions and scholarships to grow the area’s health care workforce.
