Northern Montana Hospital in Havre broke ground on March 16, 2026, on an expansion project for a new surgery center and intensive-care unit, according to hilinetoday.com
The expansion will renovate 18,000 sq. ft. on the existing hospital campus, while adding 31,000 sq. ft. of new space that will house four robot-assisted operating rooms, two endoscopy rooms and an onsite pharmacy.
Sletten Construction is the contractor on the project, which is expected to be completed in 2028, highlinetoday.com reported.
"Our hospital is 50 years old," CEO of Northern Montana Health Care Kevin Harada said. "And so operating in older OR suites, we just hit some limitations. Everything needs more power. Everything needs more room. And it just came to a time where we needed to update our OR suites."
Harada told krtv.com that project funding came through the Montana Facility Finance Authority, a state program that helps finance health-care facilities. The project will cost $45-50 million.
Alysia Mosness, the ER and ICU director at Northern Montana Health Care, told krtv.com that the ICU's equipment will be updated.
"Our monitoring systems are all getting an upgrade," she said. "We're getting a lot of portable equipment, for ease of movement and transferring of patients. We're kind of really focusing on some family-centered care. As we move forward."
"We do need to be able to provide a higher volume of services," Harada said. "But, you know, with our fully staffed surgical team, just the need to expand our services to, you know, what is necessary to expand into the OBGYN market. Robotics in general, surgery, robotics and orthopedic surgery. You just require more things in an operating room."
