FORT RILEY, Kan. -- The Fort Riley community convened at the monthly breakfast hosted by members of the Military Affairs Council from the Junction City Chamber of Commerce May 26; this time, with an announcement that the new Fort Riley hospital will open its doors in 2016.

The guest speaker for the event was Col. Risa Ware, commander of the Irwin Army Community Hospital. She spoke about medical readiness, improving patient access to care, tobacco free living, performance triad and the new hospital.

"If you're here hoping I'll tell you when it will open, you're not going to get that answer," Ware said at the beginning of her speech.

She said the hospital has made many strides to provide better care for Soldiers and family members of Fort Riley. While providing that care, the Soldiers who work at the hospital must remain mission ready.

"Readiness for our Soldiers is important and it is our number one priority," Ware said. "Part of that priority is making sure I have medical professionals who are ready to go to war and take care of our Soldiers downrange. How do they get ready? By taking care of patients. We want to keep embracing our family members because they keep us trained."

Ware said the hospital staff has worked hard to improved access to care in the last two years. This can be seen in many ways including rolling out a secure messaging service to communicate with patients via email and providing evening appointment times.

Another way the staff is giving better care is by providing an extended care clinic for enrolled beneficiaries for primary care.

"It has really taken some of the burden off the local emergency rooms," Ware said. "People who aren't sick enough to go to the emergency room but need to be seen … that's what the extended care is for instead of going to the emergency room."

Ware also provided an update about the hospital campus being tobacco free, and this will also be true of the new campus. She also said hospital staff and Soldiers of the 1st Infantry Division participated in the performance triad for the last couple of months. This is a study done by Medical Command looking at sleep, nutrition and activity levels of all participants. One of the things they found was soldiers of the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team improved their sleep habits and by improving their sleep habits, their performance in the field also improved.

Ware revealed that MEDCOM is trying a new thing, which is giving the public access to patient satisfaction scores. They are available on the IACH website.

"It's a little bit scary because nobody's perfect," Ware said. "I think we do a fantastic job, but we are human beings and we do make mistakes."

Ware finished her presentation with giving the public her stamp of approval on when the hospital would officially be open for business.

"I was hoping I was going to tell you when it was going to open," Ware said. "I will tell you I am 100 percent certain -- you've never heard me use that much certainty before -- that it is going to open in 2016."

Once the beneficial occupancy date is set, there will be a 120 day transition and outfitting period where the staff will move in and train on getting patients from one area of the building to another.