West Virginia's Mon Health System, a member of the regional Vandalia Health network, has begun construction on its latest small-format hospital in Bridgeport, similar to the Mon Marion Neighborhood Hospital to the north in the Marion County town of White Hall.
David Goldberg, president of Mon Health and CEO and executive vice president of Vandalia Health, told West Virginia MetroNews that the long-awaited $26.4 million Mon Harrison Neighborhood Hospital within Bridgeport's rapidly developing Charles Pointe Crossing is modeled after his company's successful White Hall facility, which has been in operation for about three years.
The new northern West Virginia hospital will be on a parcel of land just past the Menards store in Bridgeport. It will be a two-story, 40,000-sq.-ft. small format hospital.
"There have been 15,000 emergency room visits [to the White Hall facility] over the past year," Goldberg said. "We just got a report that there have been more than 1,200 days since we've had any kind of hospital-acquired infection, and we're in the top 10th percentile in the country related to patient experience."
A combination of inflation and construction circumstances has pushed the cost of the Bridgeport-Harrison County hospital higher than the White Hall-Marion County facility, built for a little more than $20 million.
In White Hall, the project started in an existing structure, while the newest Bridgeport is starting from scratch, MetroNews reported April 5, 2025.
"We bought a building in [White Hall's] Middletown Commons area that was already four-walls established," said Goldberg. "We didn't have to rebuild the outside structure there, so [the new Bridgeport hospital] will be a little more expensive."
The recent filing of the facility's building permit with the city of Bridgeport marked a key milestone in a process that began in July 2022, when Mon Health System filed for a certificate of need for the structure.
According to Mon Health, the path to construction included extensive collaboration with Charles Pointe's developers, Genesis Partners, as well as the city of Bridgeport, the Harrison County Commission and stakeholders within the county's tax increment financing (TIF) district.
The new hospital's construction is anticipated to take just over a year, with architectural and engineering work already complete, Mon Health noted.
Smaller, Neighborhood Hospitals Have Proven to Be Effective
The first floor of the new Mon Harrison Neighborhood Hospital will include an emergency room with eight beds, board-certified physicians and comprehensive inpatient care, including 10 private inpatient rooms. The second floor will be constructed as shell space reserved for future clinical or administrative expansion, designed to address future needs of the community.
"We have a lab on site, a pharmacy on site for patient use and we have full radiology — MRI, CT, X-ray, ultrasound and echocardiogram," Goldberg said.
In addition, patients will have access to telehealth at the facility and all specialty care and services offered across the Mon Health System.
History has proven that the small-format model used at the older Mon Marion Neighborhood Hospital can offer the same type of care offered at larger hospitals..
"We now do infusions — not chemotherapy — for those who are on an infusion treatment … at the Mon Marion Neighborhood Hospital and that will come to the [new facility]," said Goldberg.
Available services always are being evaluated, he said, and changes are focused on improving convenience and the patient experience. Those evaluations are done across the entire system by studying actual patient experiences and input from staff.
"We look at the data on why people leave one community and come to Mon Health Medical Center," Goldberg said. We see why they're leaving and for what care and then we offer that in the community close to home. We've been doing that since I got here, and we'll continue to do that."
"Vandalia Health Mon Marion Neighborhood Hospital has become a model for delivering advanced medical services in a smaller, more accessible footprint," said Christopher Edwards, DO and director of emergency services for both Vandalia Health and Mon Health. "We've exceeded expectations in patient satisfaction, speed of care and operational efficiency and [are] recognized as having one of the shortest emergency room visit times in the nation.
"Our hospital's success has proven that neighborhood hospitals can offer the same quality of care as larger institutions — just closer to home," he said. "We're extremely excited to bring this quality, convenient care to the people of Harrison County and surrounding communities with the construction of Vandalia Health Mon Harrison Neighborhood Hospital."
