Leslie Martone, president of the Cy-Fair Houston Chamber of Commerce, said a growing population is driving the demand for health care. The Cy-Fair area grew by more than 34,000 residents from 2018-23, according to five-year estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau.
“We have seen a significant growth in our community,” Martone said. “Expanded health care will always be a plus, ... [and] people in Waller and Hempstead and further up Hwy. 290 into town will also need health care options.”
Houston Methodist Cypress CEO Trent Fulin said he believes the community will benefit from a new health care facility that will help balance wait times and foster competition in the Cypress area.
“Hopefully this will create more bandwidth and opportunity for those folks that are experiencing emergency service ... to get into the facility and then get the care that they need in a timely manner,” he said.
The features
Houston Methodist Cypress Hospital will offer various specialties, including all orthopedic subspecialties, comprehensive cancer care, cardiovascular services and women’s health programs, Fulin said.
It will also feature the “hospital room of the future,” Fulin said. Patients can use their voices to control every aspect of their room, from the television to the lights and thermostat. Ambient listening technology also records and transcribes conversations between nurses and patients.
Fulin said the smart rooms took about two years to develop and will continue to evolve.
The hospital also has two da Vinci 5 robots. The robotic surgical system uses a minimally invasive approach, allowing surgeons to make smaller incisions using less force on the tissue. This typically leads to quicker recovery times, less blood loss and a lower risk of infection, according to a Feb. 13 presentation at Houston Methodist Cypress Hospital.
“Technology is going to allow us to improve quality, improve safety, improve efficiency,” Fulin said.
Houston Methodist conducted a national recruitment effort to staff its Cypress hospital, which Fulin said resulted in the hiring of over 700 employees.
The selection process was challenging since the hospital received nearly 45,000 applications, Fulin said. Nevertheless, Houston Methodist Cypress Hospital will be fully staffed when it opens March 17.“We have folks from Houston Methodist all over, from all of our sister hospitals—everybody was very collaborative,” Fulin said. “The level of interest has been just absolutely amazing. ... People know about the culture of Houston Methodist.”
Fulin said about 30% of the hospital staff were internal hires from within the hospital system, while 70% came from other areas of Houston and outside the region.
“We really recruited at a national level, so it created just a wonderful, diverse group that will come together to care for patients," he said.
As the Cy-Fair area continues to grow, Houston Methodist Cypress Hospital officials said they plan to expand their facilities accordingly. The hospital has capacity for 276 beds, 29 emergency department beds and 15 operating rooms.
“As this community grows, we want to grow with them. We’ll continue to expand services throughout the greater Cypress area,” Fulin said.
Fulin said he expects the local job market to benefit from any future expansion of the Houston Methodist Cypress Hospital, having witnessed a similar effect as part of the leadership team that opened Houston Methodist The Woodlands Hospital in June 2017.
“When we built The Woodlands, we started with around 500 or so employees, and now they have over 2,000 employees, so this is honestly just the tip of the iceberg of what we’re going to be able to do in terms of job creation for the community,” Fulin said.
With the opening of the Cypress hospital, Martone said she believes Cypress is becoming a more appealing area for businesses.
