Holy Cross Germantown Hospital holds a distinction few hospitals can claim. It is the first hospital in the nation located on a community college campus with an educational partnership. Opened on October 1, 2014, the hospital sits on Montgomery College’s Germantown campus, where it gives students hands-on learning, instructional space, and exposure to advanced medical technology, and gives the region’s health system a talent pipeline just steps away.
A BioBuzz intern recently had the chance to tour the hospital with Eric Miller, Holy Cross Germantown’s development and fundraising officer, alongside guests from Montgomery College. The tour offered a closer look at how the hospital serves both patients and the next generation of healthcare workers. Holy Cross is part of Trinity Health, a not-for-profit Catholic health system operating in 22 states, and offers paid tuition for its employees at Montgomery College.
Part of a Larger Innovation Campus
Holy Cross Germantown is one of several resident partners at the Pinkney Innovation Complex for Science and Technology at Montgomery College (PIC MC), which brings education, business, and research together on the Germantown campus along the I-270 corridor. The surrounding area is home to more than 350 bioscience companies and key federal research and regulatory institutions, according to Montgomery College.
Other PIC MC partners include:
- Germantown Innovation Center: a Montgomery County-owned business incubator housing more than 20 firms in its 32,000-square-foot building, specializing in areas including stem cell research, healthcare IT, and biotechnology.
- Bioscience Education Center: a 145,000-square-foot facility representing an $87.9 million investment in STEM education and workforce development.
- Hughes Network Systems: which recently opened a new building on the PIC MC campus focused on high-tech manufacturing and technology workforce development.
Holy Cross Germantown was also the first hospital developed in Montgomery County in 35 years, built to serve one of the county’s fastest-growing and aging regions.
A Full-Service Hospital, Built to Flex
The Germantown facility has 123 beds plus 15 ICU beds and provides nearly every kind of care except open heart surgery. Physicians there perform around 10 surgeries and deliver two to three babies each day, according to Miller. The hospital’s capabilities include:
- Robotic surgery: a da Vinci robotic surgical system for minimally invasive procedures that can shorten recovery times.
- Stroke care: as a primary stroke center, the hospital provides 24/7 emergency stroke evaluations, rapid imaging, and specially trained physicians and nurses who guide treatment, transfer, and rehabilitation decisions.
- Maternity and newborn care: the hospital is Gold Safe Sleep certified, meeting advanced standards for safe infant sleep practices and patient education, and provides pack-and-plays to parents in financial need.
Meeting Rising Demand
The emergency department typically sees about 120 visits a day. Since the Adventist Health urgent care facility in Germantown closed, visits have climbed, peaking at around 150 a day, Miller said. Even so, the hospital has kept its leave-without-being-seen rate below 1%, a strong result by industry standards.
One way it has absorbed the increase is a “vertical care unit” (VCU), where patients with less severe conditions can receive fluids and medication without occupying a hospital bed.
A Growing Demand for Healthcare Talent
For students, the most important number may be the job count. Trinity Health Mid-Atlantic currently has 640 job openings across Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware, 259 of them in Maryland, according to Melinda Dankanich, talent acquisition representative at Trinity Health.
“We have something for almost everyone,” Dankanich said. “While it is difficult to pinpoint what degrees are the highest demand, I am confident that nursing is the #1 need we consistently have. Most nursing support roles do not require a degree but are great steppingstone positions.”
Every Trinity Health job posting lists its minimum education requirements. Some roles require a completed degree, license, or certification, while others don’t require a degree or can be worked while candidates complete their minimum education requirements.
For Montgomery College students, that means a path into healthcare can start just across campus. Open positions are listed on the Holy Cross Health careers page.
