A report on the first year of operations at D.C.’s newest hospital describes “growing pains,” including long emergency department wait times for patients, staffing difficulties and financial losses.
Cedar Hill Regional Medical Center opened on the former St. Elizabeths Hospital campus in Southeast in April 2025, and in a report delivered to Mayor Muriel Bowser in late May, the GW Health-affiliated hospital said the issues are common for new hospitals, and that it has “actively taken concrete steps” to address them.
Cedar Hill ran a deficit of roughly $47.7 million during its inaugural year. Expenses came in under budget targets, the report said, but revenue was nearly 46% below projections.
Contributing to the shortfall was lower-than-expected pediatric emergency visits and lower demand for services, including women’s health and inpatient surgeries.
Adult visits to its emergency department, on the other hand, exceeded expectations, contributing to long waits to be triaged and see a physician.
In December, Cedar Hill’s emergency department was the third busiest in the District, behind Children’s National Hospital and MedStar Washington Hospital Center, and during the yearlong report period, more than 45,000 patients walked through its doors.
“Approximately 80% of those visits involved low-acuity conditions that could otherwise have been treated in urgent care settings, nearly double the District-wide average,” the report said.
Cedar Hill said it immediately set out to educate the public about the appropriate places to seek care, and the report’s recommendations include a health literacy campaign to help residents understand “when, where, and how to access care across the healthcare system while rebuilding trust in local healthcare institutions.” The hospital also wants to address “lower rates of preventive and primary care engagement.”
Cedar Hill also said it achieved “substantial improvements” in its emergency department performance in its first year, dropping door-to-triage wait times from 27 minutes to 10 minutes, and the time to see a physician was cut from 88 minutes to 47.
Another reason for its financial shortfall was its use of more contract nurses than planned in its early months. Since then, the hospital said, it has stabilized nursing staffing with permanent hires.
In the report, Cedar Hill acknowledged a D.C. Department of Health “immediate jeopardy citation” over issues with the hospital’s schedules for surgery.
“This was based on one deficiency that was immediately corrected, resulting in the Immediate Jeopardy designation being lifted on February 24, 2026 following validation of such corrective actions,” the hospital said.
7News, the first to obtain Cedar Hill’s findings, reported the hospital omitted some Department of Health information, including 38 reported complaints and testimony about a patient who had the wrong organ removed in surgery.
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