Following a recent job fair, officials with Memorial Hermann said they are confident they will be able to have the new Cypress hospital fully staffed by the time it is set to open next spring.[/caption]

With many health care expansions underway throughout the Greater Houston area, demand for nurses and physicians is on the rise. However, officials with the new Memorial Hermann hospital in Cypress said they feel confident they will be fully staffed by the time the hospital opens early next spring.

More than 640 people attended a job fair that took place in the hospital's professional building in September, said Scott Barbe, CEO of the new hospital. A lot of the applicants were people who lived in the Cypress area, he said.

"There were a lot of people who live in the community and work long distances who want to work closer to home," Barbe said. "We had a lot of interested people [who] I think we’re going to want to have second meetings with."

The new hospital, under construction along Hwy. 290 near Fairfield, is on target to open by late March or early April. Barbe said his team has already been able to hire some of the leadership positions, but the bulk of the hiring is set to take place in the month's leading up to the opening.

"We have to staff the entire hospital, so we need everything," he said. "We have prioritized the postions that tend to be more difficult to fill—professional positons, particularly nursing and some of the other clinical areas in imaging, labs and pharmacy departments."

There has been some interest from within Memorial Hermann from people looking to relocate to the Cypress hospital, but most of candidates who attended were from outside of the system, Barbe said.

When Memorial Hermann first announced the project, officials said it would create more than 250 jobs. The project will be anchored by the 81-bed acute care hospital and will also house eight operating rooms, a 16-bed intensive care unit, a neonatal intensive care unit, a cardiac catheterization lab and a Memorial Hermann Life Flight helipad. The campus will be able to accommodate future growth, including two additional medical plazas and two additional patient bed towers, which would bring the total bed count to more than 400 beds, officials said.

"We’re doing very well on our schedule," Barbe said. "We've had some great contractors working with us, and we’re right where we need to be."