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IU Health Saxony Continues Phased Expansion

It’s going to be a big year for IU Health Saxony Hospital in Fishers.

Residents in Fishers have watched construction begin and continue over the past few years, dubbed the Fishers Community Impact Project due to its scope both on and off campus – but most projects will come to completion in 2025.

The $300 million project began in 2018 with conversations involving planning and design, but it would be another four years before breaking ground.

“Our intentions were to get the ball rolling in 2020, but the pandemic pushed back our timeline so we could focus on caring for immediate needs,” said Senior Project Manager Carl Zenor. “It did allow us to get the details ironed out and make sure we were giving patients what they need.”

Those needs were determined by evaluating the market and asking Fishers residents what they were missing from their local hospital.

“Many residents were leaving Fishers for certain services,” said Chief Operating Officer Soula Banich. “We identified those additional service lines that were needed, and the campus will go from 50 beds to 88 beds.”

In order to expand current services such as their cardiovascular care, gastroenterology, orthopedics, general medicine, general surgery, and primary care, as well as obstetrics and gynecology, ear, nose and throat, nephrology, neurology, and pulmonology, the footprint of the hospital will double.

“We’ll add a pediatric emergency department, staffed 24/7 with Riley Children’s emergency medicine physicians and nurses,” Banich said. “We’ll have peds specialists, so there will be the Riley IU Health name added on there. We’ll be doubling our imaging capabilities, and offsite we’ve recently opened our McCordsville clinic and Noblesville clinic. We’ll continue to stay on the market in Fishers to see where we need to grow.”

For now, the community service needs call for a nearly 100-bed hospital. Zenor said they’ve been thinking of the future throughout planning and design.

“We’ve baked in some opportunity for future growth,” Zenor said. “If needed, we could go up to a 300-bed hospital. Currently, around 100 beds is the right sizing for the needs of the community.”

With the doubling of the hospital footprint and services offered, one can expect the staff to be doubled as well. They’ll be hiring, training and working with new employees over the next 12 months.

“Hospital team members will double in size, from clinical to nonclinical, physicians, etcetera,” Banich said. “On campus we’ll have around 250 team members per day and they will go through onboarding: clinical work trials and training before being released to their department. We’ll hire 160 team members in the next year and then an additional 100 team members as we continue to grow.”

In addition to a massive overhaul in renovations and new services added, IU Health Saxony has one more big surprise in 2025; they’ll change the name of the hospital from IU Health Saxony to IU Health Fishers.

“IU Health Saxony opened in 2011 with a niche market in the community,” Zenor said. “We are really good with cardiac care and orthopedics, but didn’t diversify outside of those service lines. Once we began looking at how to get in line with what the community needs and wants, the name Saxony didn’t resonate. They want a local hospital.”

A local hospital is exactly what the residents of Fishers will get. However, it will take several months to bring all of the changes to completion. Zenor said the process has been started regarding state and federal regulatory licenses, FDA guidelines and other components surrounding a name change.

“In June we’ll officially change the name,” Zenor said. “We’ll swap out signage and you’ll see the new name on hospital paperwork for a visual change.”

Completion of the new tower under construction is expected by October of 2025. That’s when they anticipate the bulk of the renovations and expansions will be open, though Zenor warns that the phased project will likely include construction on-site until 2026.

“The new tower will be open by October of 2025,” Zenor said. “That’s going to be the big ribbon-cutting ceremony and the date we can count on, but this is a phased process. Pediatrics emergency medicine, for example, will go live in August of 2025. We need it faster than the tower so we’re really pushing for that.”

Overall, the hospital team is looking forward to serving the community by expanding current services, and adding those that will keep Fishers residents close to home while they seek out the best health care for themselves and their families.

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