After more than a year without a hospital serving the Cleveland community, Cleveland General Hospital officially opened its doors Tuesday, Sept. 1.
The hospital began accepting patients at 7 a.m., marking a milestone for Paul McCutchen, CEO of Cleveland General Hospital, Jeff Livingston and the team that has spent months working to restore hospital services at the facility.
“We opened this morning at 7,” McCutchen said Tuesday. “The staff is very excited.”
The opening had originally been projected for July, but key staffing needs, including those involving the hospital pharmacy, delayed the timeline. McCutchen said those issues have been resolved and the hospital now has a pharmacy team in which he has confidence.
For McCutchen, the important thing now is that the doors are open.
The facility, which closed under previous ownership in May 2025, is reopening with an emergency room, inpatient beds, a clinic, laboratory services, pharmacy services and a significantly upgraded radiology department.
The emergency department has approximately 11 treatment rooms, while the hospital is licensed for 12 inpatient beds. McCutchen said the hospital will initially operate six inpatient beds as the staff settles into operations before expanding toward its licensed capacity.
Patients will also find equipment that is dramatically different from what was previously available at the facility.
The radiology department includes an X-ray system, portable X-ray equipment, ultrasound and a 128-slice CT scanner. McCutchen said some of the equipment is new while other pieces were acquired and upgraded, but all represent a significant improvement in the hospital’s diagnostic capabilities.
“If we are going to do it, we are going to do it right,” he said. “That is kind of what our philosophy is, trying to be as high level as we can.”
McCutchen said upgrading the diagnostic equipment was one of the team’s priorities as it prepared the hospital for reopening.
He recalled hearing concerns from medical personnel about the quality of some of the equipment that had previously been used at the facility. In particular, he said one person had been reluctant to recommend that loved ones receive an ultrasound there because of concerns about image quality.
The difference with the upgraded equipment has been noticeable among employees, he said.
“I used to see the look and joy on people’s faces going, ‘Hey, now we can catch things. We can operate at a higher level. Save lives,’” McCutchen said.
The hospital also has a full laboratory, with additional equipment on the way. McCutchen said two new blood culture machines are expected for the lab.
Specialty care is also beginning to take shape. The hospital has an interventional cardiologist and orthopedic surgeon on board, and McCutchen said additional services will be introduced as operations expand.
One of the biggest additions is expected this fall.
A cardiac catheterization lab is scheduled to begin operating around Oct. 1. The cath lab equipment also has been substantially upgraded from what was previously available at the hospital.
Once the cath lab is established, McCutchen said attention will turn toward reopening operating rooms. The hospital has three operating rooms that will require equipment before procedures can begin.
Rather than purchasing equipment without knowing exactly how the rooms will be used, hospital leaders plan to work with physicians interested in performing procedures in Cleveland and equip the rooms accordingly.
“It is kind of a blank campus right now,” McCutchen said. “We can get the machines that they like, the equipment that they like.”
There is still considerable room for growth.
Two wings of the hospital remain available for future development, and McCutchen said decisions about those areas will largely be driven by what services residents of Cleveland and the surrounding region need.
“We have room to expand, and we can expand into the demand that the city and the tri-county area show,” he said.
An MRI is also being considered. Installing a permanent MRI would require construction, architectural plans, state approval and inspections before walls could be modified to accommodate the equipment. McCutchen said the hospital could potentially use a mobile MRI unit in the meantime.
The ability to provide more medical services locally is one of the reasons McCutchen believes reopening the hospital matters.
During the hospital’s closure, Cleveland-area residents needing emergency, diagnostic or other hospital services frequently had to travel elsewhere. That can mean not only additional driving but also longer periods away from home for patients and their families.
McCutchen hopes Cleveland General Hospital can change that.
“Now that we’re open, and hopefully it works for good, then people kind of now appreciate, ‘Hey, I can just go get really high-level care right here,’” he said.
McCutchen and Livingston operate the hospital through Cleveland General Hospital LLC, along with a silent partner. Both are managing members of the company, with McCutchen serving as CEO of hospital operations.
Although patients can begin using the hospital now, the community will have an opportunity to formally celebrate its return during a ribbon-cutting ceremony Sept. 10, starting at noon.
The date has a little extra meaning for the hospital team. It is the birthday of Chief Nursing Officer Keith Mayes, whom McCutchen described as a highly respected nursing leader with more than 30 years of experience.
“He’s seen it all, done it all,” McCutchen said. “Just a really solid foundational piece of the hospital.”
For the team behind Cleveland General Hospital, Tuesday’s opening represents the end of months of preparation, setbacks and work, but it also represents a beginning.
“We’re just going to keep our heads down and do our best,” McCutchen said. “The work will speak for itself, and the amount of time and commitment, the team has just put so much into this.”