Sheridan Memorial Hospital announces potential partnership with regional health care system

SHERIDAN (WNE) — Sheridan Memorial Hospital is exploring a partnership with Billings Clinic, CEO Mike McCafferty announced recently.

McCafferty said the partnership does not mean the hospital will be bought, acquired or merged with Billings Clinic, but rather it gives the two facilities an opportunity to work together and use each other's services and resources.

“ We’re trying to improve patient care and have a partner that we can grow strategically with,” McCafferty said. “As we look at all the things that we’re facing and the challenges we’re facing, we need to be able to have a partner that we can go to battle with and win.”

One of those challenges is battling corporate medicine structures. Casper, Riverton and Lander hospitals have been acquired or bought out by larger corporate health care systems.

“We’re resisting private equity and corporate medicine,” McCafferty said. “We want to retain local governance control, meaning that our doctors and the relationships they have with their patients, the care that they receive is based on that relationship and the judgment of the doctor, not some protocol from Tennessee.”

Patients of SMH would not notice any changes in service. But, through the partnership, SMH would like to achieve better digital communication for patients between the organizations. SMH will also save money through the partnership, McCafferty said.

The proposed partnership is in the early stages of approval, McCafferty added.

“In order to do something like this, we need to be able to have our board weigh in on it and then have an affirmative vote from the board. We would need the county commissioners to weigh in and have an affirmative vote from the county commissioners,” McCafferty said. 

SMH will host community forums Oct. 27-29 to receive feedback from the community.

This story was published on Oct. 23, 2025.