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Wapiti Celebrates 25 Years Serving Rural Communities

Wapiti is proud to celebrate 25 years in business this year. Throughout our history, we have remained committed to a vision of serving rural communities by improving the well-being of the areas we serve: one employee, one healthcare provider, and one facility at a time.

Wapiti traces its roots to 1996 in a small, rural hospital in Iowa. Dr. Brad McDonald, a resident physician at the time, was tasked with managing the ER schedule at that facility. While there, Dr. McDonald saw a need to staff other rural communities with physicians temporarily to help fill staffing gaps (commonly referred to as locum tenens coverage), and an idea was born. What started as a group of residents covering ERs on weekends eventually expanded to full ER coverage, as well as Clinic, Urgent Care, Inpatient, Anesthesia, and other services throughout the Upper Midwest.

Wapiti partners with both healthcare facilities and medical providers to ensure that schedules are covered and that rural hospitals can continue to function at their full capacity. In addition to locum tenens coverage, we now provide permanent placement and an assortment of consultative services customized to meet the unique needs of rural healthcare facilities and keep them fully staffed. To help fill this staffing need, Wapiti partners with over 700 healthcare practitioners including physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, certified registered nurse anesthetists, and other specialties.

Additional Milestones:

2002: Wapiti headquarters move from Lake Nebagamon, WI to Milbank, SD.

2006: Wapiti starts its first Anesthesia contract in Hibbing, MN. Since that time, Anesthesia coverage has grown to several full and part-time accounts.

2008: Wapiti adds hospitalist services, starting in Virginia, MN.

2012: Wapiti merges with Siouxland Staffing Services (a medical staffing company located in Huron, SD) under the Wapiti name.

2015: Leadership, with the support of local investors, acquires majority interest in Wapiti from Dr. McDonald.

2018: Wapiti acquires Emergency Practice Associates (a medical staffing company located in Waterloo, IA).

Today, Wapiti Medical Staffing is one of the largest medical staffing firms in the upper Midwest with leadership based in Milbank and Huron, SD. As a multi-year recipient of ClearlyRated’s Best of Staffing® Award, Wapiti is designated among the top 2% of all staffing groups nationwide. Our organization supports the healthcare needs of over 250 communities, working with more than 700 healthcare providers supported by 40+ internal Wapiti employees.

THANK YOU to all our partner facilities and providers for 25 great years!

Put Wapiti to Work for You

If you need top-tier healthcare providers for your facility, reach out to Wapiti Medical Staffing today.

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