New Troy hospital to see first patient in June

Miami County will have two hospitals for the first time since 1998.
Jennifer Sherman, clinical nurse manager, stands in one of the new operating rooms at the new Kettering Health Network hospital in Troy. KAITLIN SCHROEDER

Jennifer Sherman, clinical nurse manager, stands in one of the new operating rooms at the new Kettering Health Network hospital in Troy. KAITLIN SCHROEDER

Miami County is about to become a two-hospital county after 20 years being served with one hospital.

Kettering Health Network is putting the finishing touches on the 600 W. Main St. hospital, which will open June 18 and employ about 200. The opening will mean two major health networks will now be present in Miami County.

The 135,000-square-foot, three-story hospital will have 28 inpatient beds, including four intensive care unit beds, as well as an emergency department, intensive care, lab and imaging, cardiac testing, surgery and a medical office building for physician practices.

PHOTOS: Sneak peek at new Troy hospital opens

Eric Lunde, president of Kettering Health Network’s new hospital in Troy, said some of the employees at the hospital will be longtime Kettering Health employees who previously had been commuting to other sites.

“So for many people, they have the opportunity to live three miles from where they’re working,” he said. “And they get to serve their community and they get to serve their family members.”

As of Thursday afternoon, the equipment was still being prepared, the signage and landscaping was being installed and the ambulance and emergency signs will remain covered until the hospital is ready to start taking emergency patients. The hospital’s hallways will be decorated with photos of local landmarks.

The Troy hospital joins Kettering Health’s network of eight other hospitals including Kettering Medical Center, Grandview, Sycamore, Southview, Greene Memorial, Soin, Fort Hamilton, and Kettering Behavioral Medicine.

Kettering Health is also currently building a medical center in Piqua that will include an emergency department.

The hospital will not have its own separate foundation, and instead the Kettering Medical Center foundation will be involved in the Troy community.

Lunde said that he is talking with area schools with health care programs to see if there are ways the hospital and schools can work together.

“We do want to partner with them and are having conversations,” he said.

Piqua Memorial and Stouder Memorial closed and consolidated their services to a new facility, Upper Valley Medical Center, that was built in 1998 on the former Dettmer Hospital campus site. Upper Valley Medical Center is part of Dayton-based Premier Health.

The long running hospitals closed over some community opposition — even organized opposition from a group called “Save Our Hospitals ” — but the hospital system’s leaders said at the time that the move was necessary because of declining overnight stays and the need for efficiency.

Lunde said many of the patients they will be treating will be patients who were traveling outside of their community to go to Kettering Health facilities.

He said the decision to open a hospital in Troy was made taking into consideration lots of data and expertise, looking at everything from market data, to demographics, to community feedback, to access to care.

“What we want to do is we want to make wise decisions for the care that we provide and how and when and where we do it,” Lunde said.

Last year, Troy Mayor Michael Beamish praised the plans for a new hospital and Kettering Health plans to bring new jobs into the city’s core.

“They have been great to work with,” Beamish said at the time. “We can’t say enough about their willingness to be a part of our community.”

The new hospital was originally projected to be a $60 million project, but mid-project Kettering Health officials decided to add 30,000 additional square feet to the hospital to make sure they had enough blank space for future growth.

The final project cost has not been tallied yet, said Lunde.


Open house

Kettering Health Network will hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony on June 6 and the community can come to a public open house from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. on June 9. There will also be a sneak peek open to the public during the Strawberry Festival from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the hospital.

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