The $200 million facility welcomed patients on Oct. 1 as the first hospital to be built in the county in more than 35 years. The hospital is also the first in the country to be built on a community college campus and is the core of Montgomery College’s Hercules Pinkney Life Sciences Park.

Designed by Chicago-based SmithGroupJJR, the 237,000-square-foot, 93-bed hospital offers medical, surgical, obstetric and emergency services, and psychiatric care. The facility features a full-service emergency department with an adjacent observation unit; patient units for cancer care, dialysis and inpatient rehabilitation; a 15-bed ICU; two 30-bed inpatient units; and a behavioral health unit. There is a range of specialties for surgical services as well as full-service operating rooms and rooms for endoscopy and interventional radiology. Comprehensive maternity services are provided through labor and delivery rooms, cesarean surgical suites, private postpartum rooms and an eight-bed neonatal care unit.

The new hospital was designed to help with the challenges of health care delivery, according to a press statement from SmithGroupJJR. All of the hospital’s private patient rooms and staff zones were designed for operational efficiency as well as for the comfort and independence of patients and their families. Large windows provide daylight in-patient, staff and public areas, and decentralized nursing alcoves. Visitor seating bays are located along the public concourses, which helps simplify way-finding.

Applying evidence-based design methods, the objective for SmithGroupJJR’s designers was to create a healing, patient-centered environment. Features include a healing garden, landscaped roofs and soothing interior finishes.

“Our ability to meet our mission has been greatly enhanced by innovative design and attention to the details of providing care to those in need,” said Holy Cross Health President and CEO Kevin J. Sexton in a statement.

“Not only is the new hospital beautiful, but it features the latest platforms and innovations in health care delivery and architecture, including advanced medical technologies and interventional platforms for patient-focused care,” added William Kline, AIA, LEED AP, EDAC, who served as the principal-in-charge on the project, in a statement.

The hospital was constructed by Baltimore-based Whiting-Turner Contracting Company. Syska Hennessy Group, headquartered in New York, served as the prime MEP engineer alongside sub consultant partner, Eldridge, Md.-based Leach Wallace Associates.

The hospital, which serves nearly 200,000 patients each year, is seeking a LEED Silver rating.

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