Courtesy of OhioHealth
When OhioHealth built the Pickerington Medical Campus in 2014, it already had expansion plans in mind. So, it wasn’t a surprise when the medical system broke ground on a hospital onsite in December 2021.
The new OhioHealth Pickerington Methodist Hospital will not only be a physical expansion, but it will also bring new health services to the Pickerington community.
“Part of the advantage to having a medical campus there for the last seven years is that we got to experience the needs of the community,” says Kevin Lutz, president of Pickerington Methodist Hospital and Grove City Methodist Hospital. “When it came to this expansion, really, the community told us what they needed.”
The current campus provides a variety of medical services to the Pickerington community. It was initially built to address a geographical need. As more people flocked to the area, there was a gap in the amount of care available. Pickerington has only continued to grow and OhioHealth saw an opportunity to better serve the needs of the community.
The new hospital will span 220,000 square feet, 15,000 of which will be dedicated solely to cancer treatment. It’s projected to be fully operational in 2023.
The $140 million investment will result in the creation of more than 500 new positions onsite in Pickerington, a major increase from the current 250 as- sociates staffing the medical center. Ap- proximately 50 new corporate roles will be added to support the hospital.
The existing medical campus will remain open during construction.
“We’ve been very intentional that we won’t disrupt any of the current services,” Lutz says. “We have an obligation to continue to care for the community.” In designing the new hospital, Ohio- Health combined community feedback and knowledge of Pickerington’s needs with insight gleaned from OhioHealth’s other hospitals and medical centers across central Ohio. The result will be a comprehensive hospital that provides high levels of care right in Pickerington’s backyard.
New Services
Courtesy of OhioHealth
The decision to dedicate a substantial portion of the new hospital to a cancer treatment area came from Ohio- Health’s community research.
The cancer treatment section will ensure that Pickerington area residents in cancer treatment don’t have to travel to hospitals outside of the area for that treatment, eliminating a challenge and potential barrier to top-notch cancer care. While the current medical center serves breast, colon, and rectal cancer patients on-site, the new hospital will
Pickerington Methodist Hospital is expected to be fully operational by late 2023. The 220,000 square foot space will create 500 new positions.
also hold 20 infusion bays, a point-of-care lab and an infusion pharmacy located within the hospital’s main pharmacy. The new hospital will also host a Level III trauma center, the first of its kind for the area. The medical campus currently partners with Grant Medical Center and Violet Township for trauma services. That partnership will continue, allowing Pickerington residents seamless access to Grant Medical Center’s Level I trauma center, but the addition of the Level III trauma center will facilitate medical intervention without needing to transport patients as frequently. That decreases the time before patients receive care and reduces stress on the system as a whole.
Additionally, the hospital will be the first in Pickerington to provide labor and delivery services. That makes for shorter travel for expectant parents and allows mothers to give birth closer to home.
Even with the significant new addition, OhioHealth still has room for future expansion should the need arise.
The health system’s goal continues to be opening doors for medical care ac- cess across central Ohio, Lutz says.
“When we announced that we were moving forward with (the expansion), many people expressed that they’ve just been waiting for this to happen,” Lutz says. “We were straightforward about this being a possibility from the start, so we were met with open arms by city leadership, businesses, and the citizens of Pickerington who are excited about access to high-quality health care in their backyard.”
Taylor Woodhouse is a contributing writer. Feedback welcome at feedback@ cityscenemediagroup.com.
