As the primary regional medical facility in southeast Wyoming, Cheyenne Regional Medical Center’s (CRMC) West Campus was quickly outgrowing its facilities. Looking to provide top notch care to the surrounding communities and remain competitive in the marketplace, the leadership at CRMC decided to build a new Cancer Center and expand the existing emergency department.

CRMC was seeing nearly 450 cases of cancer every year, had an extensive radiology therapy program, and had numerous medical oncologists on staff, but they lacked a comprehensive cancer center to treat patients. Seeking to avoid a model of “fractured care” with treatment facilities scattered around the community, CRMC leadership decided to build a new, 48,000 SF Cancer Center connected to the existing hospital.  During design, the team had to keep a possible future vertical expansion in mind when laying out systems and how they could be expanded if necessary. The new Cancer Center provides a single location for education, support, and therapy for the surrounding areas. The center hosts a state of the art linear accelerator and tomography suite, as well as a new CT/SIM system. Exam rooms and modern infusion spaces were also included.

In addition to the new Cancer Center, CRMC wanted to expand their exiting emergency department, adding an addition 40,000 SF. Designing additions can prove difficult, especially when the existing facility remains in operations, as CRMC did.  Because the hospital couldn’t be shut down, the ED expansion was completed in phases, shuffling around departments as needed to ensure patient care and safety at all times. The new emergency department addition allowed for an additional five trauma bays, eight CDU exam rooms, four psychiatric exam rooms, 14 general exam rooms, a satellite pharmacy, and a penthouse that holds all new MEP infrastructure.

Both the expanded emergency department and the new Cancer Center opened to the support of the surrounding communities.