Rapid City Regional Hospital
Rapid City, SD

Rapid City Regional Hospital (RCRH) is a not-for-profit regional medical center operated in trust for the community and region by a 13-member Board of Trustees, who represents the local communities. It is licensed for 310 acute care and 56 psychiatric beds and is accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations and the Commission for the Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities. Rapid City Regional Hospital offers an extensive array of services including but not limited to Comprehensive Cancer Care, Comprehensive Heart Care, Diagnostic Imaging and Home Health Extended Care.

Cancer Care Institute

The Cancer Care Institute (CCI) at RCRH is a technologically advanced facility that has been continuously approved as a comprehensive community hospital since 1981. The Comprehensive Cancer Program includes medical oncology, radiation oncology, clinical trial research, pharmacy, lab and imaging, quality assurance, cancer registry, and home care/hospice. CCI maintains long-standing relationships with nationally renowned research groups and works with regional health care providers to promote cancer awareness, prevention and early detection.

Patient Population

RCRH serves approximately 100,000 Native Americans from surrounding communities and reservations including Pine Ridge, Cheyenne River and Rosebud. The Pine Ridge Reservation is currently the poorest county in the United States and suffers from some of the highest cancer mortality rates. Rapid City Regional Hospital is the primary provider of radiation oncology care for the Native American Population in this region.

This institution was awarded a five-year grant from the National Cancer Institute. The project title is Enhancing Native American Participation in Radiation Therapy Trials. Read an excerpt of the proposal below:

The Cancer Care Institute (CCI) in Rapid City, South Dakota, serves approximately 100,000 Native Americans from surrounding reservations. Some patients live up to four hours from the cancer center. Identifying barriers, which prevent Native Americans from presenting with earlier stages of cancer, or in some circumstances not at all, will be investigated.

Equipment installed at this site: Full TELESYNERGY(R) system using off-the-shelf software on a Windows XP Workstation.