Geisinger to add 11-story patient tower with $880M expansion

Geisinger plans to embark next year on an $880 million expansion of its Danville, Pennsylvania, medical center, including the addition of an 11-story patient tower. 

The project has been formally approved by Geisinger parent company Risant Health, said Megan Brosious, chief administrative officer for Geisinger’s central region, on Tuesday.

Related article: Geisinger data breach may have hit 1.2M patients

The planned new tower at Geisinger Medical Center will include a larger emergency department — with 60 beds instead of 45 — and revamped intensive care units, according to a news release. It is slated to be open to patients by 2029, Brosious said. In the meantime, the hospital will house some services in an outpatient clinic being used as office space.

The health system intends to relocate existing employees and hire additional nursing and support staff members after the tower's construction, Brosious said.

Along with the expansion, the hospital is making all medical-surgical rooms on campus private, which Brosious estimated will free up 30 patient beds daily. Semi-private rooms often can't be used to capacity due to risk of infection, she said.

Geisinger representatives declined to respond to questions about how many non-emergency patient beds will be added with the tower's construction. 

The planned expansion, which Geisinger is fully funding, will additionally include a parking garage.

After the $880 million project is complete, the hospital aims to update its radiology and observation departments, Brosious said. 

The announcement is the latest example of growth efforts from Danville-headquartered Geisinger. Last July, the system announced a $900 million expansion of its Wyoming Valley Medical Center in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. The project, slated to be finished by 2028, includes an 11-story tower.

Geisinger also entered a joint venture in 2021 with Franklin, Tennessee-based behavioral health provider Acadia Healthcare to construct two inpatient facilities in Pennsylvania. One, in Moosic, opened in July 2023; the other, in Danville, is set to open next year. The projects will double Geisinger's mental health-related inpatient beds in the state, Brosious said.

The system's recent data breach has not affected any of its expansions, she said. 

Other health systems have announced major construction and design projects in the last few years, including Henry Ford Health, which intends to invest nearly $3 billion in its Detroit campus expansion. In April, Highmark Health and Allegheny Health Network said they will put $1 billion toward Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh over the next decade.