Inside Memorial Regional Hospital's $670M Expansion to Modernize Care

CEO Paul Gaden explains how the tower project will support complex surgical programs, improve patient experience, and prepare the hospital for new workforce models.

Hospitals looking to improve patient experience and strengthen their workforce are increasingly confronting the limitations of their physical infrastructure. Many facilities were built for a different era of medicine, when operating rooms required less technology, patient rooms were often shared, and care teams were smaller.

As surgical procedures have grown more complex and patient expectations have evolved, hospital leaders are rethinking how their facilities need to function. At Hollywood, Florida-based Memorial Regional Hospital, that effort is taking shape through a $670 million expansion that is designed to align the hospital’s infrastructure with the realities of modern care delivery, CEO Paul Gaden told HealthLeaders.

The project centers on a new patient tower that will house 22 operating rooms and 150 private beds, expected to be completed in 2029. To Gaden, the investment fortifies Memorial Regional as a hub for high acuity programs including neurosciences, cardiac and vascular care, and transplantation.

“Those big services need modern-sized operating rooms and equipment and lights and everything else that goes into it in order to continue to deliver the high-quality care that they do today, far into the future,” Gaden said.

Since Memorial Regional, part of Memorial Healthcare System, first opened in 1953 at a 100-bed hospital, it has expanded significantly to 863 beds.

Before stepping into the CEO role in July of last year, Gaden spent more than two decades in healthcare leadership, including years in both finance and operations. That experience has framed his view of large capital projects, and from his perspective, the tower expansion represents the next stage of growth for both the hospital and the health system.

Designing for the future of care

The catalyst for the new tower was the hospital’s surgical services platform.

“Our operating rooms are small and with the types of services that we provide here, the amount of equipment and people that go into operating rooms today is vastly different than what it was 35 years ago,” Gaden said.

The project doesn’t add to the total number of operating rooms, but instead replaces existing rooms with larger spaces designed to support advanced technology and multidisciplinary surgical teams.

Alongside the surgical revamp, the tower also addresses a long-standing challenge within the hospital’s patient care units. Currently, 85% of the rooms at Memorial Regional are semi-private, Gaden noted, typical of a design that was once common in hospitals. Patients frequently share rooms during their stay, which can hinder privacy and infection control while also affecting the overall care experience.

“By adding 150 private rooms here, it allows us to become more like the rest of the country,” Gaden said.

Pictured: Paul Gaden, CEO, Memorial Regional Hospital.

Private rooms even offer advantages for caregivers. Clinicians gain more space to work with patients and families, and care teams can more easily incorporate new technologies that support treatment and monitoring.

Gaden said the hospital plans to equip the rooms in the new tower with systems that support virtual care capabilities, including cameras and screens that allow clinicians to connect with patients remotely when appropriate.

Hospitals everywhere are exploring virtual care models that allow specialists to consult on cases without physically entering a patient’s room. The same technology can support virtual nursing programs that connect experienced nurses with bedside teams.

“That can extend the career of a of a nurse that maybe is unable to do a 12-hour shift anymore just from the physical standpoint," Gaden said. “But what we want to preserve, what we're seeing around the country, is maybe he or she will do a virtual nursing role for another two or three years. And then what we're getting is their expertise, with maybe a newer nurse that's on the unit. So the use of technology is going to be incredibly important for us for recruiting and for retention.”

Balancing investment with financial discipline

While the tower project’s benefits are clear, they come with a major financial commitment. Gaden said the expansion will add approximately $32 million in annual depreciation to the organization’s financial obligations once it is completed: “So we have to figure out how we’re paying for that.”

In the news release announcing the project, Memorial Healthcare System said it would be “funded through a mix of operational cash flow, debt markets, and investment strategies.”

“We’ve taken a thoughtful, financially responsible approach to this expansion,” Elizabeth Justen, chair of the South Broward Hospital District Board of Commissioners, said in a statement. “It reflects our commitment to fiscal stewardship while positioning Memorial to deliver world-class care for decades to come.”

The financial planning is taking place in a challenging environment for hospital leaders, in which health systems are attempting to balance large capital investments with the management of rising costs and reimbursement pressure.

Memorial Healthcare System has maintained a strong financial position, according to Gaden, which helped create the flexibility to pursue a project of this scale. In its most recent earnings report, Memorial Healthcare System showed a 9.9% increase in total net operating revenue through the first six months of fiscal year 2025, compared to the same period in the prior year. Investment income, meanwhile, more than doubled to $106.6 million.

For Gaden, the expansion ultimately reflects a long-term view of the hospital’s role in the community, as well as the belief that infrastructure decisions made today must anticipate how care delivery and financial sustainability will evolve in the years ahead.

He said: “The one thing that's inevitable is change, so we know it's coming and so we just have to be proactive and anticipate as best we can and not get caught on our heels.”