Amanda Forrester / news@whmi.com

Officials said the new, state-of-the-art Trinity Health hospital is still on track to open in March of next year.

The 174,000 square foot hospital will hold 56 acuity care beds, 18 short-stay beds and eight licensed operating rooms. The hospital will be able to expand the acuity care area to accommodate up to 96 beds based on the needs of the facility.

It will be located on the current Trinity Health medical campus in Brighton.

John O’Malley, President of Trinity Health Livingston and Trinity Health Medical Center - Brighton, and Douglas Ferrick, Regional Vice President of Philanthropy for Trinity Health – Southeast Michigan, were recently on the Brighton Chamber podcast to offer an update on the facility’s progress.

O’Malley said that while the hospital is on track to open on time, the project hasn’t been without challenges. One of the biggest was ensuring the existing medical center and the hospital could be connected. He said it was a lot of work for the team to have the infrastructure for the medical center, which was built in 2000, connected with the new building.

The new facility needs to be able to accommodate new technologies, such as virtual nursing, along with the physical needs such as electricity and plumbing, while also being able to flow into the medical center, he said.

“We’re going to bring a new hospital to Livingston County that people can rely on,” O’Malley said during the podcast.

The new hospital is being designed to cater to every need of residents in the area, outside of some procedures such as open-heart surgery. Livingston County is over 20 miles from large hospitals in the area, such as U of M and St. Joes, both of which are in the Ann Arbor area.

O’Malley said the goal is to keep “local care local.”

Fundraising for the facility has taken place under the campaign “Forging Our Future” for nearly two years, Ferrick said. $5 million was set as the goal for the campaign, and he said they are on track to meet or possibly exceed that amount by the spring of next year. If the goal is met, that would be the largest amount they’ve raised in Livingston County to date.

A cabinet was created with people from Livingston County to get the word out about the fundraiser and why the money is being raised.

Trinity Health is a non-profit organization, Ferrick said. All of the money that comes in gets put into ways to meet the needs of the public, from staff to equipment to facilities.

For more information about the Forging Our Future campaign and updates on the hospital, visit the link below.

A link is also included to the Brighton Chamber podcast.