New Design for Intermountain St. Vincent Regional Hospital Replacement Unveiled

The latest design plans for the new Intermountain St. Vincent Regional Hospital in Billings, Montana were shown to the public this week. The new hospital will be a 14-floor, 737,000 square-foot facility located on the Intermountain St. Vincent campus at 27th Street & 12th Avenue North, just east of the current hospital building.

“As a leader in Montana healthcare, we are thrilled to break ground in 2025 on our brand-new hospital in Billings,” shared Lee Boyles, president of Intermountain St. Vincent Regional Hospital and the Montana and Wyoming market of Intermountain Health. “Building a replacement hospital affords a once-in-a-generation opportunity to take all we know about modern healthcare and design a hospital for high-quality, efficient care for decades to come.”

At the peak of construction, it’s anticipated there will be 600-700 workers on site at the project, and more than 1,200 total workers involved in the building project.

Having this skilled workforce focused on this project in Billings will have a significant economic impact for the community.

From earlier projections of the size and scale of the project, it’s expected that over the life of the project $13.5 million could be spent on accommodations and housing, and $6 million spent in grocery stores and restaurants alone, from the increase in the construction sector as well, among other large economic impacts in other sectors.

This will be a full-replacement hospital, meaning the current St. Vincent facility will be replaced, and upon opening, all current services offered at Intermountain St. Vincent will transfer to a new state-of-the-art facility.

The project is designed to address current needs of patients of the region, while accommodating both long-term population growth and future healthcare needs of the community. Construction on the project is expected to begin in Spring 2025 and anticipated to be completed in 2029.

Innovative design for patients and caregivers

The decision to replace the current facility was made to address aging infrastructure and to create a modern and efficient hospital. The guiding principles of the new hospital’s design will meet patient needs for many years to come.

The innovative and adaptable design ensures that the facility is built to meet how hospital care will continue to change. The new facility will have 243 patient beds with additional space ready to build out 16 additional beds when needed. All of the rooms are designed to be universal with the ability to be converted into an ICU level of care, allowing the hospital to respond to changing demands and a potential future pandemic.

Additionally, all of the operating rooms have been designed to adapt to multiple types of procedures and will be fully integrated to manage changes in technology and accommodate the latest and future developments in robotic surgical technology.

The surgical areas of the hospital have also been designed to have the pre-op, operating rooms, and recovery areas all in the same location, allowing for more efficient care.

To provide an excellent patient and caregiver experience, the new hospital will offer several unique design aspects:

• Dedicated Public Space: The entire first floor has been dedicated as public space for patients and visitors, providing a healing and welcoming environment and privacy for patients.  It will include a prominent, beautifully designed chapel, an outpatient pharmacy, gift shop, and discharge lounge.
• Improved Public and Emergency Entrances: The public entrance will include a beautiful outdoor garden and will accommodate multiple streams of traffic, improving flow. The emergency department entrance has been designed to be safe, secure, and separate from the public entrance to allow for patient privacy and efficient critical care, including a covered garage for ambulances.
• Improved Care by Design: All floors will feature decentralized nursing stations, allowing caregivers to be closer to their patients. Most patients’ rooms will have large windows providing natural light and beautiful views of Billings. There will be separate staff, patient and visitor entrances and elevators, allowing for privacy, creating a quiet and healing environment for patients.

“What excites me about this project is the ‘why’ behind it. We are doing this to elevate healthcare in our area for future generations of Montanans,” said Dustin Strandell, chief operating officer of Intermountain St. Vincent Regional Hospital. “The design you see today is the result of hundreds of meetings over the course of two years and includes insights and input from many of our talented providers, caregivers and experts.”

Intermountain Health leaders say the health system us excited to be making this investment on the current Intermountain St. Vincent campus in the heart of the existing medical corridor in Billings.

“We are confident the new hospital will serve as a catalyst for the continued growth and development of Billings as a leader in healthcare,” said Boyles. “We look forward to building a broad coalition of philanthropic, clinical, and community partners committed to transforming healthcare in our region.”

For up-to-date information and announcements, please see the Intermountain Health newsroom at https://news.intermountainhealth.org.

About Intermountain Health

Headquartered in Utah with locations in six states and additional operations across the western U.S., Intermountain Health is a not-for-profit system of 34 hospitals, approximately 400 clinics, medical groups with some 4,600 employed physicians and advanced care providers, a health plans division called Select Health with more than one million members, and other health services. Helping people live the healthiest lives possible, Intermountain is committed to improving community health and is widely recognized as a leader in transforming healthcare by using evidence-based best practices to consistently deliver high-quality outcomes at sustainable costs. For up-to-date information and announcements, please see the Intermountain Health newsroom at https://intermountainhealthcare.org/news.