KALISPELL – Nurses at Kalispell Regional Healthcare decide to move ahead with unionization.

In a secret election, more than 550 nurses cast their ballots and 65% of those nurses were in support of unionizing.

A group of nurses at Kalispell Regional Medical Center demonstrated outside of the hospital Wednesday against the potential unionization efforts.

But a month ago some other KRMC nurses approached Kalispell Reginal Health CEO Craig Lambrecht asking the hospital to unionize its nurses.

“While I respect the outcome of this vote, I am disappointed that this pathway was chosen over what I believe to be the better approach of having a direct working relationship with our nurses to continually improve patient care and move the organization forward,” Lambrecht said in a statement.

The union includes nurses from KRMC, HealthCenter, and the Brendan House.