ACRMC Celebrates 70 years

On September 3, 2022, the Adams County Regional Medical Center (ACRMC) celebrates 70 years of providing quality healthcare close to home for residents of Adams, Brown, and surrounding counties. 

"Over the past seven decades, our medical center has provided life-saving care to our friends, family, and neighbors," said Alan Bird, CEO of ACRMC. "Without the dedication from our community over the years, we could not do what we do. We are grateful for the opportunity to serve you, and cheers to the next 70 years!" 

On September 3, 1952, the first patient was admitted to the Adams County Hospital in the heart of the Village of West Union. ACH originated in 1948 through the support of 85% of the voters for a $250,000 Bond Issue. Thereafter, Governor Thomas J. Herbert appointed a Board of County Hospital Trustees to oversee the planning of a new and innovative hospital.

At the first Board of Trustees meeting in December 1948, Dr. R. L. Lawwill was elected Chairman of the Board. By March 1949, ACH's name and the decision to begin construction of the twenty-six-bed general hospital were determined. In 1955, thirty more beds were added, continuing the hospital's expansion, followed by thirty-two more in 1966. The total was then ninety beds.

In 1970, a storage wing was added and followed by Specialty Clinics, Pathology, Pharmacy, and Dietary. This and other additions, including upgraded parking facilities, piped oxygen, a portable heart monitor and defibrillator, a second X-ray machine, an electronic computer for general accounting, and a two-bed coronary care unit, were all paid for from operating surpluses and donations. The ACH Board and medical staff added additional equipment and services to eliminate lengthy trips to distant cities for many diagnostic procedures.

The 1980s found increased technological advances and new government regulations for health care facilities. Some of the significant new additions included in this renovation project were a state-of-the-art Emergency Department, operating suite, special care unit, a larger Outpatient Specialty Clinic area, Albert R. Hanna Care Center, office space, and a modernized Imaging Department, including X-Ray, Ultrasound, Nuclear Medicine, C.T., and Mammography equipment. In keeping with the trend toward outpatient services, the bed complement was reduced to 67 beds.

The late 1980s and early 1990s found ACH continuing to serve the residents in and around the county with efficient, high-quality health care. During these years, ACH HomeCare, Lyric Health Care Center, Sports Medicine, Occupational Health Care Center, Rehabilitation Center (including expanded physical therapy, occupational therapy, cardiac, pulmonary, stroke, and speech therapy services and fitness programs), ACH Medical Arts Center, and the Northern Adams Medical Center joined the family of health care services.

Groundbreaking for an additional/upgraded medical facility occurred on July 29, 2005. The ground was donated on Moores Road, near Seaman, Ohio, after extensive research and a feasibility study determined the growth in the next ten years to be along the Appalachian Highway corridor, which connects Adams County to the Cincinnati area.

The upgraded, renamed $27 million facility opened its doors for the first patient on August 6, 2007, with twenty-five private inpatient units and twenty-five private outpatient units, five designated as an inpatient Hospice Unit, collaborating with Hospice of Hope – Ohio Valley. 

The facility also gave room for an enlarged Imaging, Rehabilitation, Outpatient Specialty Clinic, Laboratory, and Cardiopulmonary Departments. In addition, the Emergency Department has fourteen private examination rooms, with three equipped for trauma. The Surgical Suite has two operating rooms and an endoscopy procedure room. 

Like many other critical access hospitals in 2015, ACRMC faced financial hardship, and the Rural Hospital Group, a rural hospital management company, took over the critical access hospital's management. In October 2019, ACRMC transitioned from a government-operated hospital to a 501c3 non-profit organization.

In its 70th year of operation, ACRMC has expanded by adding 5 locations, including four rural health clinics serving residents of Adams and Brown counties with family medicine, onsite imaging and lab services, orthopedics, podiatry, physical and speech therapies, and a blood draw station in Peebles, with the medical center offering over thirty specialty programs and departments.