CommonSpirit on Jan. 11 opened a hospital in Ringgold, Ga., as part of a strategic push to keep more patients in North Georgia and prevent them from seeking care across the state line in Tennessee.
The 135,000-square-foot Memorial Hospital-North Georgia includes 64 inpatient beds, five operating rooms, two endoscopy suites and a 24-bed emergency department. It also features in-room smart technology and offers a wide range of surgical and diagnostic services, such as imaging, cardiac diagnostics, cancer care and laboratory testing.
The facility replaces CHI Memorial Hospital Georgia in Fort Oglethorpe, which officially closed its hospital operations on Jan. 11, according to the Chattanooga Times Free Press. The Fort Oglethorpe site had been leased from Catoosa County for the past eight years while CommonSpirit planned and built the new hospital.
“Healthcare can stay here in North Georgia,” James Williams, market chief operating officer at CHI Memorial and CommonSpirit, told Local 3 News. “Right now, a lot of healthcare goes over to Tennessee. This brand new hospital will let people stay closer to home and get great care here.”
The hospital brings together multiple services on a single, unified campus. It is adjacent to a medical office building and existing facilities, including the MaryEllen Locher Breast Center, Rees Skillern Cancer Institute and The Chattanooga Heart Institute.
The hospital’s opening also marks a rebranding milestone: Chattanooga, Tenn.-based CHI Memorial is officially adopting the CommonSpirit name, aligning more closely with its parent organization, which formed in 2019 through the merger of Catholic Health Initiatives and Dignity Health.
Becker’s has reached out to CommonSpirit and will update this story as more information becomes available.
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