Fargo hospitals add emergency rooms to meet demand

Fargo's largest hospital has opened seven new emergency rooms and another local hospital plans to expand its emergency services in this city of about 100,000 people. Sanford Health officials said a $1.7 million expansion and renovation project has doubled the capacity of the hospital's emergency center. The addition has resulted in a more efficient suite of 27 emergency rooms to better handle almost 60,000 patient visits a year, officials said. Sanford's emergency center is one of the busiest in the tri-state region and sees almost twice as many patients as Sanford's hospital in Sioux Falls, S.D. Sanford will open a new hospital in Fargo in 2016. When the new facility opens in four years, plans call for 51 emergency rooms. Sanford hopes to obtain designation for the highest level of trauma care.