CLEVELAND, Ohio – The MetroHealth System today opened a new primary care office in Medina, beginning the hospital’s expansion push outside of Cuyahoga County.
The MetroHealth Medina Health Center, at 111 W. Reagan Parkway, is the system’s second location in Medina County but the first since a new bill was passed allowing the hospital to operate freely in eight new counties.
State lawmakers over the summer passed a bill allowing MetroHealth to provide inpatient facilities and related services in Geauga, Lake, Lorain, Medina, Portage, Stark, Summit and Wayne counties. As a county hospital, MetroHealth previously had only been able to open locations outside Cuyahoga County by first getting approval from the pertinent county governments.
Michael Stern, executive vice president and chief operating officer of MetroHealth, said the bill allows MetroHealth to operate like other health systems in Northeast Ohio. Effectively, MetroHealth will be able to compete more easily with larger systems such as the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals, both of which have locations in Medina.
“Without House Bill 111, we would’ve needed an agreement between Cuyahoga County and Medina County officials,” Stern explained. “It simplified the entire process and puts patients and their healthcare needs first.”
MetroHealth says it will not use any part of the Cuyahoga County Health and Human Services levy to pay for the Medina location.
Roughly 1,500 MetroHealth and Cuyahoga County employees, as well as members of MetroHealth’s employer health plan, MetroHealth Skyway, live in Medina County, according to MetroHealth officials.
“We’re looking to fill service gaps and there was a need for primary care in Medina County,” Stern said.
While he couldn’t elaborate on the system’s further expansion plans, Stern did say the recent change in laws “expanded the possibilities” for MetroHealth.
“There’s nothing really new to report right now,” Stern said. “We’re evaluating the different markets and looking to see where there’s a need.”
Stern said the system has the bandwidth both to expand in Medina and “to handle any other opportunities,” despite the system’s ongoing $946-million transformation project on its main campus on West 25th Street in Cleveland.
“We wouldn’t have done it if we didn’t,” Stern said.
The transformation project involves expanding the health care system’s services, as well as erecting a new 11-story, 270-bed hospital on MetroHealth’s main campus. Construction on the tower is expected to start in early 2019 and is expected to be done by 2022.
The 5,000-square-foot MetroHealth Medina Health Center offers walk-in and scheduled appointments for patients ages 16 and older by MetroHealth provider Anthony Petruzzi. Walk-in appointments are available weekday mornings. It will employ roughly six people.
MetroHealth’s other Medina County location, the Brunswick Health Center, opened in 2015 and provides primary care, pediatric services, infusion treatments and a MetroExpressCare center.
For more information on the new MetroHealth Medina Health Center, visit https://www.metrohealth.org/medina-reagan or call 330-725-6226 for an appointment.
This story was updated to clarify information from MetroHealth.