The new 11-story hospital will be located at MetroHealth’s West 25 th Street main campus and house 350 single-occupancy patient rooms with Intensive Care Unit capabilities.
The design features a park that will allow patients to enjoy the outdoors and provide green space to the surrounding community. At the meeting, MetroHealth CEO Akram Boutros emphasized the public hospital’s commitment to the community.
"The new hospital and its $1 billion investment will spark the revitalization of the West Side neighborhood," said Boutros. "It will create work for thousands and it will shepherd in a new era of state-of-the-art care at our 181-year old public hospital."
In May 2017, MetroHealth sold $946 million in hospital-revenue bonds to finance the campus transformation. Construction of the hospital is slated to begin by early 2019 and be completed in 2022.
At the meeting, Boutros also announced a reduction in opioid prescriptions in the last 18 months. The hospital lowered the number of opioid pills prescribed for acute pain by 62%, and those for chronic pain by 25%.
The hospital also distributed 400 Narcan kits at the meeting. Providing Narcan to the general public allows more people to have access to the life-saving medicine and also breaks down stigma about addiction, Boutros said.
"There are 50,000 Americans who die each year," Boutros said. "We can’t do it alone. Health providers can’t do it alone, law enforcement personnel can’t do it alone, we need the public to help. So who knows when you’ll be walking down the street and save a life as well."