Houston Methodist Hospital holds crane-raising ceremony to celebrate new construction

The new patient tower in the Texas Medical Center will replace patient beds in Houston Methodist Hospital’s original Main building and add highly advanced heart and neurosurgery operating rooms. It is expected to be completed in 2017 and will have the capacity for 378 beds, including 102 intensive care beds, expanded operating suites, hybrid suites and a dedicated cardiology floor with 14 interventional catheterization labs. The new tower, which will cost about $540 million, will include high-tech operating rooms that will dramatically expand Houston Methodist’s ability to provide image-guided heart and brain procedures. These procedures allow for minimally invasive treatment of conditions that once required open surgery.

Pictured above, from left to right: Robert C. Robbins, M.D., president and CEO of the Texas Medical Center; Marc Boom, M.D., president and CEO of Houston Methodist; Judge Ewing Werlein Jr., chairman of the Houston Methodist Board of Directors; Roberta Schwartz, executive vice president of Houston Methodist Hospital; and Rev. Charles Millikan, vice president for Spiritual Care and Values Integration for Houston Methodist. (Credit: Houston Methodist)