St. John's Health set to close Grand Teton, Lander clinics
JACKSON — St. John’s Health plans to close clinics in Lander and Grand Teton National Park. A Teton Village urgent care clinic is also set to stop summer operations.
The Jackson-based hospital system plans to close its Lander clinic this summer, with its final service date set for July 31. Changes to the Teton Village and Grand Teton clinics are set to become effective after their summer seasons end on Sept. 7 and Oct. 5, respectively.
“Given the financial headwinds facing rural hospitals across the U.S., we need to concentrate on our core services and strategic initiatives,” St. John’s Health CEO Jeff Sollis said in a press release. “The summer operations in Teton Village and Grand Teton National Park incur significant operating losses, despite our targeted marketing and efficiency efforts.”
The Lander clinic is the hospital’s lone outpost outside of Teton County. It started operating in 2019 to address patient needs in Fremont County, which spans more than 9,000 square miles and is home to the Wind River Reservation as well as Lander, Shoshoni and Dubois.
“This was not an easy decision,” Sollis said. “We are incredibly proud of our Lander team members, and it’s been a privilege to care for our Fremont County patients in their own community.
“Unfortunately, we can’t provide the necessary resources at this time to maintain out-of-county clinic operations,” he added.
Four people will no longer have jobs when the Lander clinic closes.
Summer operations at the two Jackson Hole clinics are fairly new.
St. John’s started Teton Village’s summer services in 2020, and started operating the Grand Teton clinic in 2021. The national park clinic, like nearby Jackson Lake Lodge, is closed during the winter.
Neither of the clinics had “reached the patient visit targets necessary to support continued summer service,” according to the press release.
The Teton Village clinic will continue to operate in the winter when skiers flock to Jackson Hole Mountain Resort.
The Teton County clinics poised to close are two of the three urgent care clinics that St. John’s operates in Jackson Hole. The third, on Highway 89 near Smith’s, will continue year-round operations. That clinic expanded its hours in 2024, and is now open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily.
The hospital has struggled to staff urgent care clinics outside of Jackson. The Teton Village clinic was closed during the summer of 2022.
St. John’s has faced financial challenges from rising costs of staffing and an increasing number of Medicare patients, leading to lower reimbursement rates for the hospital.
This story was published on June 24, 2025.