“Built with North Texas’ future in mind” | New hospitals, medical facilities are in the works to keep up with DFW’s booming population

DALLAS — North Texas’ ongoing population boom means more hospitals and medical facilities are needed to meet the region’s healthcare needs — particularly as rural hospitals around the state and beyond struggle financially. 

While North Texas’ population is growing and new facilities are opening to accommodate the growth, some rural hospitals across Texas and beyond are cutting services amid financial struggles. 

John Henderson of the Texas Organization of Rural & Community Hospitals recently warned that a third of the 157 rural hospitals in Texas have less than 10 days’ cash on hand.

“In some of the rural areas, the hospitals are struggling from a financial point of view, a cash-flow point of view and, as a result, they may have to cut back services, which creates a gap, or they may even have to close units,” DFW Hospital Council CEO Steve Love said. “Some of the rural hospitals in Texas, unfortunately, have closed labor and delivery because of not having enough physicians, and not having the staff.”

To help fill gaps in healthcare access and accommodate steep growth in the population centers of North Texas, a number of new medical facilities have either recently opened or are in the works across the northern sectors of the Metroplex. Many of these facilities, including full-scale hospitals, are arriving in the parts of the Metroplex that are seeing the most rapid growth, such as Collin and Kaufman counties.

The population of Kaufman County, located to the east of Dallas, spiked 26.7% between January 2020 and Jan. 1, 2024, to a total of 184,070 residents, making it the fastest-growing place in Texas during that time, the Dallas Business Journal reports. Meanwhile, Collin County also ranked among the fastest-growing counties in the country, having grown 13.6% between 2020 and 2024 to a population of 1,209,295, per the Dallas Business Journal.

All those new North Texans need healthcare services.

While new facilities are opening up to accommodate the growth, Love said North Texas healthcare facilities are keeping up with the number of inpatient stays.

“Even with all the growth we’ve had in North Texas, the bed days per 1,000 are still below the national average, which says we’re not overbedded,” he said.  

Aside from building new hospitals, Love said he expects North Texas will also see more outpatient clinics and “probably as much focus as possible on telemedicine,” as the population continues to grow.

So here’s a look at the different facilities major health systems have recently opened or are coming soon to North Texas — and how the entities behind these new facilities are deciding where to put them.

Baylor Scott & White Health, the largest nonprofit health system in Texas, officially opened Baylor Scott & White Medical Center – Frisco at PGA Parkway, a new 340,000-square-foot, 84-bed hospital, earlier this summer. 

The new facility offers emergency and trauma care, cardiovascular care, women’s healthcare, surgical facilities, imaging services and more. 

Construction on the project began in 2023. 

“Baylor Scott & White is committed to expanding access to high-quality care built on a legacy of clinical excellence,” said Baylor Scott & White Medical Center – Frisco at PGA Parkway President Ryan Gebhart when asked when the facility brings to the table. “As North Texas continues to grow, this new medical center is poised to meet the needs of a thriving region.”

Baylor Scott & White – Frisco at PGA Parkway Chief Medical Officer Eric Beshires said the new facility was designed to continue to meet the needs of North Texas into the future. 

“This campus is built with North Texas’s future in mind, with deep expertise in inpatient and emergency care,” Beshires said. “As we enter our third decade of Baylor Scott & White’s service within the City of Frisco, we are committed to continuing to grow with the community to meet the changing needs of this area.”

Medical City Healthcare has expansion projects in the works across the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, with a particular focus on fast-growing Collin County and Fort Worth, the 11th largest city in the country. 

Fort Worth was one of two U.S. cities to surpass a population of 1 million residents last year, and added 23,442 residents from 2023 to 2024. 

“As the North Texas region continues to grow and evolve, Medical City Healthcare is strategically expanding to ensure families have access to the essential services they need, including emergency care, mental healthcare, hospital services, and specialized programs,” Medical City spokesperson Janet St. James said when asked about the company’s newest North Texas facilities. “Expansion is focused on underserved communities or areas experiencing rapid population growth, where we can make the greatest impact on community health and provide timely, expert and compassionate care close to home.”

In the last five years, Medical City says the health system has invested more than $1.7 billion in everything from building acquisitions and expansion to facility enhancements and technology.

Medical City Mental Health & Wellness Center Alliance – a 65,000-square-foot, single-story hospital providing inpatient and outpatient services at 3100 Alliance Town Center in Fort Worth – opened in February to provide access to inpatient mental healthcare in the area.  

In 2024, Medical City opened Medical City ER Garland, an 11,000-square-foot facility at 3318 W. Buckingham Road, that boasts private exam rooms, a trauma room, an onsite laboratory, imaging services and more. 

That same year, Medical City bought Medical City Mental Health and Wellness Center Frisco at 5680 Frisco Square Boulevard, and Medical City Sachse, a campus of Medical City Plano at 4750 President George Bush Highway that provides 24/7 emergency care.

In 2023 Medical City acquired Medical City Decatur, a campus of Medical Center Denton at 609 Medical Center Drive, which is a full-service, acute care hospital with 150 beds, with the goal of “maintaining vital hospital access in a more rural community.”

This year, work is underway on a new, three-story patient tower at Medical City Arlington that will add 60 more patient care beds, bringing the total thee to 496. Additionally, the project will add eight private day surgery rooms, two neurosurgery operating rooms, two orthopedic surgery operating rooms, and a new main lobby with a coffee bar and other amenities. The new patient tower, set for completion later this year, will have connectivity to Medical City Women’s Hospital Arlington. 

Meanwhile, Medical City Fort Worth is adding four operating rooms and a new cardiac catheterization laboratory as part of a buildout of the facility’s second floor. That project is also set to be completed later this year. 

Then there’s Medical City Heart Hospital in Dallas, which is adding three floors to provide a new cardiovascular intensive care unit, additional bed space and more. The space will house a 28-bed cardiovascular intensive care unit, specially-equipped ICU beds for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (an advanced life support therapy for patients whose heart or lungs are not functioning properly) and shell space for additional beds in the future. The $60 million project is also set for completion later this year. 

Finally, Medical City McKinney is planning a three-story expansion of its own that will add 28 more patient beds for a total of 357, plus four operating rooms, a new post-anesthesia care unit and additional space for day surgery. And Medical City Plano is expanding with 60 more patient beds, bringing the total there to 663, as well as three rooftop helipads, a three-story parking garage and shell space for future patient beds. 

In March, Methodist Health opened Methodist Celina Medical Center in Celina — the first hospital in the rapidly growing Collin County city.

Located about 40 miles north of downtown Dallas, Celina was the fastest-growing American city among cities and towns with a population of at least 20,000 between July 2022 and July 2023, according to the U.S Census Bureau.

The new $237 million, 200,000-square-foot hospital facility offers a full slate of services, including cardiovascular care, orthopedics and cancer treatment, as well as trauma and emergency care. The facility has 51 beds in all, with shell space to expand to 100 more, plus three operating rooms and a cardiac catheterization lab.

“Celina, it took us 97 years to get here, but we’re darn glad we’re here,” said Chief Executive Officer James C. Scoggin, Jr. “We go where there’s need, and we meet that need. We run to it.”

Celina Mayor Ryan Tubbs said the facility is the third-largest employer in the city, aside from the school district and the city itself, with about 250 full time employees. Tubbs said the facility is expected to reach 300 employees within the next year. 

“They’re now in the fabric of what Celina is and what Celina is going to become,” Tubbs said. “Just having  that facility in its close proximity really lends itself to quality patient care to our residents and the residents of the surrounding area.”

Before it opened, EMS had to transport patients to Baylor Scott & White Medical Center in McKinney, about 14 miles from Celina, which is also expanding.

“Anywhere north of 380 is having huge, explosive growth, so Baylor kind of had reached their capacity,” Tubbs said. “You may think that a lot of these hospitals are competitors with each other, but I think what I see from behind the scenes is you have very much relationships where they want to work together, where it’s really about the patient.”

To help meet the increasing need for services in the area, Texas Health Resources is building the first full-service hospital in Forney.

The new hospital will be built on 50 acres along Highway 80, and is set to open in 2027 — bringing with it hundreds of new jobs. It will be fully-equipped with an emergency room, surgical suites, advanced imaging and more.

“There is a need with the fast growth in population in the Forney area to really expand care,” said Toya White, who serves as president at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Kaufman and will serve as president of the future Texas Health Hospital Forney. “A lot of our patients in that area now go outside of their homes and their environment to receive care. So we saw an opportunity to really meet our patient where they are. Expanding access to care is something that we’re always evaluating, and really how to meet our population demands.”

A spokesperson for the city of Forney said the facility will provide essential services as well as jobs to the community.

“The city has worked for more than a decade to bring high-quality development to the Gateway area. While it has taken time, we’re excited to see so much progress. Along with strong commercial growth, the addition of a world-class, full-service healthcare facility like Texas Health Resources is a tremendous step for Forney,” Forney spokesperson Zach Smith said in a statement.  “This hospital will not only provide essential services to our residents but will also create high-quality jobs.”

Texas Health Resources Senior Executive Vice President Laura Irvine said the health system considers population and other demographics when considering where and what types of healthcare facilities are needed in an area.

“It really is a result of the really rapid population growth that’s occurring in DFW, and just really the overall economic growth,” Irvine said. “We look at demographic data, where that growth is occurring, but we also pair and match that with what we know those demographics result in healthcare utilization. Certain demographics, ages, etc. will use different types of services and healthcare more than others.”

Added Irvine: “We really watch not just the growth rates, but also the population density. Also, the demographics of that market. What are the healthcare services that they need, healthcare utilization and what are those current access points.”

Beyond demographics, Irvine said Texas Health considers advances in technology to determine what services are needed.

“There will be some procedures moving from inpatient to more outpatient or diagnostic testing, and so we want to make sure we’re planning the right types of access points,” she said. “So sometimes that is a hospital, and sometimes that’s other types of access, which is more outpatient or ambulatory, even urgent care. We want to make sure we’re matching not just the population and volume of the growth but the type of healthcare needs that they will have.”

Irvine said Texas Health has seen the use of e-visits, or virtual visits, increase about threefold in the last year.

She noted, too, that hospitals also work with municipalities when planning new hospitals to provide for EMS service to large areas.

Explained Irvine: “We’ll want to work with them, make sure they know the services that we’ll be providing from Day 1, and how we’ll work with their EMS and ambulance services that will hopefully provide for them a much faster access for their ambulances than where they are currently driving to.”

Irvine said the health system also partners with cities and school districts where they plan to build facilities. One example Irvine shared: Texas Health Resources, Forney ISD and the Forney Education Department are partnering on community events and health and wellness initiatives like a Forney ISD back-to-school rally. 

As health systems plan for new hospitals, Irvine said they work to ensure they have enough land to expand to in the future and that they have planned out where new patient towers or other expansions could go.

“We’re always looking to partner with organizations with innovative ideas to really meet the needs and future demands of health care,” added White.

Aside from the upcoming new hospital in Forney, Texas Health Frisco in June announced plans to add 30 new patient rooms to the hospital’s medical/surgical unit. That $25 million project is expected to be completed by fall of 2026. 

Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Southwest Fort Worth is also expanding with a new five-story patient tower on the current site of the Virginia Clay Dorman Breast Care Center. The renovation and expansion are estimated at $223 million. Two of the patient floors in the new tower, which will have 64 beds, are expected to open in 2028. 

Late last year, Texas Health Resources also bought 21 acres of land in fast-growing Collin County at the northwest corner of the Dallas North Tollway and the Collin County Outer Loop in Celina with plans of expanding there in the future as well. 

UT Southwestern broke ground in May on a $177 million radiation oncology campus in Fort Worth to meet a growing need for cancer treatment, officials with the health system said. 

The 65,000-square-foot facility in Fort Worth’s Medical District will include the city’s first MRI-guided precision radiation treatment, four linear accelerators to deliver precise radiation treatment (plus space for two more) and a fully-equipped brachytherapy suite to provide high-dose radiation treatments for patients with prostate or gynecologic cancers.

The campus is projected to open in 2028 and will be connected to UT Southwestern’s Moncrief Cancer Institute in the city’s Medical District.

Construction also began earlier this year on a new $5 billion pediatric health campus coming to Dallas’ Southwestern Medical District, the Dallas Business Journal reported. The pediatric health complex will be located on more than 33 acres at the corner of Harry Hines Boulevard and Paul Bass Way, and it will reportedly replace the existing Children’s Medical Center Dallas.

Fort Worth’s Las Vegas Trail neighborhood will soon get a new way to access healthcare. 

JPS Health Network, Cook Children’s Health Network, the city of Fort Worth, Tarrant County, LVTRise and WestAid Food Pantry have partnered to bring a 40,000-sq-ft health center to the neighborhood, with the ribbon-cutting held August 5 at 2800 S. Cherry Lane. 

At the facility, Cook Children’s Neighborhood Health Center will offer pediatric medicine, behavioral health, well-child and sick visit care. JPS Health Center will offer family medicine, behavioral health, women’s health, social services and more. WestAid will run a food pantry on-site. 

“The collaboration that has gone into this center is what truly makes it so special, and I’m really honored to say that Cook Children’s is a part of it,” said Rick W. Merrill, President and CEO of Cook Children’s Health Care System. “The best part is that the residents have been a huge voice and guiding light in the transformation happening there, even helping us envision and paint a beautiful mural at the new facility. Their fingerprints are all over this project and will continue to guide how we evolve in this space to best serve them.”

The neighborhood health center marks the first time JPS Health Network and Cook Children’s have partnered to offer healthcare in one facility. 

“Our private-public partnership with Cook Children’s is historic because it marks the first time two of Tarrant County’s longest-serving health care institutions are uniting to serve families under one roof,” said Dr. Karen Duncan, President & CEO of JPS Health Network. “It exemplifies what’s possible when mission-driven organizations unite to remove barriers to care.”