Hope Restored: Reopening Madera Community Hospital
On January 3, 2023, Madera Community Hospital (MCH) was forced to close and file for bankruptcy. Financial stressors, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the need to hire traveling nurses to address surges of patients, pushed the hospital to a point where it could no longer operate. The next closest hospital to MCH and the 160,000 citizens the hospital serves is 30 miles away — too far for many patients without access to a vehicle. Despite the very evident need for a hospital in the community, Madera Community Hospital’s doors were forced to close, and the city of Madera, as well the nearby towns, were turned into a healthcare desert.
In 2024, American Advanced Management (AAM) acquired the property that was Madera Community Hospital and set out to reopen the doors, bringing healthcare back to Madera. As part of their reopening, AAM engaged Haffty Consulting to revive MCH’s MEDITECH Client/Server EMR — a process that took months of technical work to bring the system and its build up to date, and to ensure that all MCH staff would have access and training when the hospital doors opened to patients again.
The Haffty team reviewed the entirety of the MEDITECH system, testing updates and making changes, ensuring that all clinical documentation and content met the newest standards, and working to ensure that the hospital, once opened, would be able to receive revenue from their payors. The team worked to train new MCH staff as they were hired, teaching them workflows and best practices, as well as how to maintain the system and build different dictionaries. The team tested everything from individual PCs and printers to state-required interfaces and controlled substance prescription standards, all with a goal of reopening MCH as quickly and safely as possible.
In the weeks leading up to the reopening, the Haffty team members working on site had many interactions with members of the community who, upon learning why the consultants were in town, voiced their enthusiasm and appreciation for everyone involved in reopening MCH.
On March 18, 2025, Madera Community Hospital once again opened its doors to the community, offering quality healthcare close to home for the residents of the county. The team from Haffty Consulting was thrilled to be there for the unveiling of the hospital, redone inside and out with modernized patient care areas and upgraded imaging technology. Many of the same MCH team members who cared for the people of the community until the 2023 closure returned to MCH, gladly reassuming their roles and coming “home” again. From minute one, patient volumes were higher than predicted, soundly proving that MCH is a much-needed resource for the community.
The Haffty Consulting team was proud to be a part of this reopening, and all our team members are truly glad that Madera Community Hospital is back open for the people of Madera.