HEALTH CARE
operating rooms, and several special- ized care units and labs, according to hospital ocials. “We have patients of our community that we can’t accommodate today that are ending up going elsewhere,” said Josh Urban, Memorial Hermann senior vice president and The Woodlands Med- ical Center CEO. “If we’re pretty much out of space today, we’re denitely going to have the need—even a greater decit here in the future.” Memorial Hermann was the area’s third-largest nonretail employer in , with its more than , employees behind only Conroe ISD and Anadarko Petroleum Corp. Urban said the expan- sion is expected to bring even more workers to the Shenandoah hospital. “I anticipate several hundred more employees as we move towards open- ing the south tower, and we’ll be over , here in the coming couple of years,” he said. Staley said the planned additions should bring a boost to many layers of the local economy as construction and hiring continue at both locations. “When you’re looking at expansion with a capital spend of nearly a half a billion dollars just on two projects, that is tremendously impactful to a com- munity,” Staley said. “Then you start bringing in the need to hire, and that brings the need for more housing. And rooops drives economy.” Projections from the Greater Houston Partnership showed health care as the Greater Houston area’s top sector for employment gains as well. The GHP in late estimated an annual addi- tion of around , health care jobs in the region in , and the partner- ship’s mid-November update showed a “return to trend” in the eld with around , jobs added year to date. SPEND OF NEARLY HALF A BILLION DOLLARS JUST ON TWO PROJECTS, THAT IS TREMENDOUSLY IMPACTFUL TO A COMMUNITY.” —GIL STALEY, THE WOODLANDS AREA ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PARTNERSHIP CEO ROOM FOR GROWTH This year also saw another Hous- ton-area medical provider expand its presence in The Woodlands. MD Ander- son Cancer Center, which had operated out of CHI St. Luke’s Health-The Wood- lands Hospital for around a decade, completed a three-story standalone care center o Hwy. that opened in “WHEN YOU’RE LOOKING AT EXPANSIONWITH A CAPITAL
Several health care systems launched new care centers or announced major expansion projects in south Montgomery County in 2019.
The number of employees at major* The Woodlands-area health care employers
doubled from 2010 to 2019. NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES
4,552 2010 4,433 2011 4,430 2012 4,270 2013 6,938 2017 5,856 2016 5,449 2015 4,734 2014 9,237 2019 8,725 2018
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Commerce] Economic Outlook Confer- ence, we typically start by saying, ‘Once again, health care is leading our growth and jobs,’” EDP CEO Gil Staley said. “It reinforces to us that there’s still a strong belief in this market to bring opportuni- ties and health care. … It’s just a grand example of the popularity of our area.” HOSPITAL EXPANSIONS The south Montgomery County med- ical market has seen new additions and project announcements in that are expected to bring hundreds of new jobs to the region. Two of the area’s hospitals and larg- est employers, Houston Methodist The Woodlands Hospital and Memorial Her- mann The Woodlands Medical Center, each began work on facility additions that are expected to open in . Houston Methodist announced a million patient tower expansion this spring as the second phase of its master plan for its campus in The Woodlands, which will increase the hospital’s capacity and sta. The addi- tion broke ground in late September. The hospital now holds nearly patient beds and operating rooms, and it will gain around beds and operating rooms with the tower addition. The tower project will also expand capacity for several centers within the hospital, including emer- gency, endoscopy, heart and diagnos- tic imaging areas. Debbie Sukin, the CEO and regional senior vice president for Houston Meth- odist The Woodlands Hospital, said the facility had always planned to grow along with the area and its needs, but the health system accelerated its plans to kick o the expansion in . The tower’s groundbreaking followed a year of growth for the hospital, which Sukin said included the completion of capital projects, such as the addi- tion of ve new operating rooms and several intensive care unit beds. The facility also gained around employ- ees since the start of , according to information from Sukin and the EDP. This fall also saw the start of an eight-story tower addition across I- at Memorial Hermann’s Shenandoah medical center. That million proj- ect will add nearly patient beds, six
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early fall. Establishing the , -square- foot center also increased MD Ander- son’s local workforce, which grew from around employees at St. Luke’s to at the new facility, ocials said. “Once we rolled out additional ser- vice lines to be more comprehensive, we needed additional experts. We’ve added all kinds of job titles and all kinds of dierent positions and roles to be able to support the growth of our new programs,” said Kyle Taylor, MD Anderson’s executive director of Hous- ton-area locations. Ketrese White, the assistant vice president for Texas Children’s Hospital The Woodlands, said the facility is also planning to expand over the next year and has grown its job count and cover- age area since opening in . “People think just Woodlands, but we get the market from that whole region, even patients traveling from Louisiana [and the] East Texas area,” White said. White said Texas Children’s will open an on-site urgent care center in May due to the needs of its emer- gency care services. The hospital also plans to open two additional operating rooms in the spring. Hospital ocials and industry experts said population growth con- tinues to be the driving factor behind south Montgomery County’s health care corridor. “I’ve seen projections for the popu- lation growth in our community and also our county, and it’s still projected to go up. So when that happens, his- tory proves hospitals answer, and they have to expand to address the need,” Staley said. “I don’t anticipate it com- ing to a halt or even slowing down for that matter.” Taylor, Sukin and Urban said each of their systems’ new facilities were or will be constructed with shell space for
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Opened October 2019 230
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210,000 SQ.FT. cancer center
employees
Features: radiation oncology, diagnostic imaging, outpatient clinics, wellness area
Early 2022 completion
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484,000 SQ.FT. expansion project
including 332,510 SQ.FT.
tower addition
3,000 total employees expected by 2022
Features: new patient tower with operating rooms, treatment areas, dozens of beds and three floors for future expansion
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260,000 SQ.FT. expansion project
Early 2022 opening Over 2,000 total employees expected by 2022
Features: new patient tower with 100 beds, 10 operating rooms, improved diagnostic imaging modalities and enlarged care centers
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15,000 SQ.FT. radiation facility
Opened Nov. 2019
Features: modern radiation technology and imaging equipment, upgraded exam rooms
’ 2 new operating rooms opening in May 2020 Currently around 1,000 employees
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SOURCES:LOCALHOSPITALS/ COMMUNITY IMPACTNEWSPAPER
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Community Impact Newspaper • communityimpact.com
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