Wall-Breaking Ceremony Kicks Off Observation Unit Construction Project At JHHCMC

HOWARD COUNTY, MD — Community leaders and county officials celebrated the start of Johns Hopkins Howard County Medical Center new observation unit with a wall-breaking ceremony.

In October 2023, Howard County Executive Calvin Ball pledged $15 million over three years in $5 million increments (two installments have already made to date) to support the transformation of JHHCMC’s pavilion building’s first floor into a 29-bed observation unit. The construction of this new unit to the medical center’s emergency department will help reduce ED wait times for patients and is the first addition of beds to the ED since 2009.

The total cost of the project is approximately $28 million, with JHHCMC having secured an additional $13 million from a mix of state funding and philanthropic donations to bring the project to fruition. The new observation unit is expected to open in fall 2026.

“Emergency department wait times in Maryland have become some of the longest in our nation, with 18 percent of adults reporting that they went to ER in 2024 because they couldn’t get a timely appointment elsewhere,” Ball said at the wall-breaking ceremony. “Today, this ceremonial ‘wall breaking’ marks another historic and impactful moment in our efforts to alleviate the stress put upon JHHCMC’s emergency department and its staff and help ensure our community members are receiving the medical care they need in a timely and efficient manner.”

In addition to the new unit, JHHCMC also has rolled out the following projects to improve capacity at the medical center, including:

• Opening its behavioral health unit in 2024;
• Expanding the area of care for less acute patients in early 2025;
• Launching virtual nursing in April 2025; and
• Introducing quick care services in pediatrics in the summer of 2025