Holy Cross Health of Silver Spring, Md., has opened a $200 million, 93-bed hospital in Germantown, Md., in the same county about 20 miles northwest of the regional health system's 443-bed Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring.
Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington, DC, blesses the new Holy Cross Germantown Hospital in Germantown, Md., as Kevin J. Sexton, president and chief executive of Holy Cross Health, looks on from the hallway.
Holy Cross Germantown Hospital is the first hospital in the U.S. to be located on a community college campus, according to information from the facility. Situated on the Germantown Campus of Montgomery County Community College, the hospital is the anchor for Hercules Pinkney Park, a science and technology business park.
The hospital, which opened Oct. 1, has emergency services, surgical services, intensive care, maternity care, behavioral health, imaging and diagnostics. It has all-private rooms and shelled space to allow for future growth.
The facility is the first hospital to be built in Montgomery County, Md., in 35 years; and the first to be built in Maryland in 25 years. "Maryland has a rigorous certificate of need process," said Kevin J. Sexton, president and chief executive of Holy Cross Health. "The bar is set pretty high (to build new facilities), but we met the test because we showed this area was the largest and most densely populated in the state without a hospital."
Sexton added that Holy Cross Health's solid financial performance, its strong market share and its record of providing more than 48 percent of the health care financial assistance in the county "provided a great backdrop for our proposal" to build the new hospital in Germantown.
Sexton noted that locating on the community college's campus is enabling Holy Cross Health to recruit and help educate future health care workers. Community college health science students will be able to do clinical rotations at Holy Cross Germantown Hospital.
Holy Cross Health and Montgomery County Community College began their partnership five years ago. Holy Cross Health helps to fund a simulation lab at the college; it allows its clinicians to take time off to teach at the college and it has built a Holy Cross Health Center at the college's Takoma Park, Md., campus.
The opening of Holy Cross Germantown Hospital is part of a larger Holy Cross Health plan to improve health care access in Montgomery County. A $200 million project under way at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring will convert all rooms to private rooms. And, Holy Cross Health will have opened four health centers, the one at Takoma Park included, by late summer 2015.
Holy Cross Health was conducting a quiet fundraising campaign for the projects that moved into its public phase in September. Holy Cross Health has raised $14 million so far, including about $500,000 from its medical staff. The campaign goal is
$25 million.
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