Officials from Mercy met with community leaders from the tri-county area last week to discuss the community’s needs as they move forward with a new hospital in Wentzville. 

The healthcare company plans to build a 75 bed hospital on the north side of the intersection of Interstates 70 and 64 in Wentzville. According to Anthony Rothermich, Mercy Vice President of Surgical, Emergency and Therapy Services the healthcare system has owned the property since 2009 and has decided to develop it as they see a need for more healthcare options in the growing tri-county area. 

He said the new hospital will be focused on adult medical surgical conditions but will also host several other services including an ambulance service and emergency department housing 28 rooms. 

The hospital will also include 18 intensive care beds and a variety of specialized services. 

“We’ll have a robust complement of offices of specialist positions,” Rothermich said. 

Those offices will include oncology for radiation and chemotherapy services, as well as cardiology and an obstetrician department although Rothermich said they do not plan to deliver babies at the hospital. 

Rothermich continued saying they felt there was a need for additional medical care options in the area of St. Charles, Lincoln and Warren counties as they conducted a survey and found that 18% of residents who are admitted to a hospital are admitted at a Mercy facility. 

Many of those are admitted to Mercy facilities that are not nearby where they live like the hospitals in Washington and St. Louis County. Rothermich said that the need to travel those distances was against Mercy’s values as a healthcare system. 

“That sort of flies in the face of Mercy’s values, which is, healthcare ought to be accessible, and if it’s more convenient to get to if it’s closer to home or work that is more accessible,” Rothermich said. 

If completed, the new hospital would be the nearest one for many Warren County residents, closer than the SSM Health St. Joseph Hospital in Lake St. Louis and another Mercy facility in Washington. 

Right now the project is awaiting approval from the Missouri Health Facilities Review Committee, a state agency that has the authority to approve new medical facilities in the state like hospitals or nursing homes. 

For the project to move forward, that committee must approve Mercy’s application for a certificate of need, a document outlining why Mercy believes there to be a requirement for increased medical services in the area. 

That document will be decided on by the committee when they meet on July 29, and Rothermich was confident they would approve. 

“Of course we’re biased but we’re pretty sure we meet, or we exceed the standards, and we’re confident that we can get approved,” Rothermich said. 

Following that decision, work would begin on developing the new hospital’s site, located on more than 60 acres of undeveloped land adjacent to both I-70 and I-64. The development would continue alongside the state’s Improve I-70 project, which will expand the interstate to at least three lanes across the state. 

Rothermich said, pending approval, they expect to break ground in early 2025 with a projected completion date in 2029, a year after the Missouri Department of Transportation is expected to complete that portion of the Improve I-70 project. 

If approved and once completed, the Mercy Hospital in Wentzville will provide expanded healthcare services to Warren County residents in a closer proximity than several of the existing hospitals serving the county.