• The Fishel Foundation has committed $1.5 million to support the OhioHealth Women’s Health Navigation Hub.
• The hub will provide dedicated care coordination to help women and their families better understand care options, connect with clinicians and access resources.
• The navigation hub will be part of the new OhioHealth Women’s Center, expected to open in 2027 at Riverside Methodist Hospital.
• OhioHealth says the program reflects its commitment to compassionate, individualized and coordinated care for women at every stage of life.

OhioHealth is grateful to announce a $1.5 million gift from the Fishel Foundation. This generous commitment will support the development of the OhioHealth Women's Health Navigation Hub, a dedicated care coordination service set to launch at the OhioHealth Women's Center. The navigation hub will serve as a central point of support for patients, helping women and their families more easily understand care options, connect with the right caregivers and clinicians, and access vital women’s health resources throughout their experience at the Women’s Center.

By integrating dedicated navigators into the daily operations of the new Women’s Center, the program is designed to provide individualized, high-touch support during every step of a woman’s care journey. The generous gift from the Fishel Foundation will help bring this vision to life, ensuring the expanded services offered through the Women’s Center continue to reflect OhioHealth’s commitment to excellence, compassion and coordinated care.

The OhioHealth Women's Center is set to open in 2027 on the southeast corner of the OhioHealth Riverside Methodist Hospital campus. The standalone center will become one of the leading facilities of its type in the country and is designed to meet the complex and changing healthcare needs of women throughout the different stages of life.

"This gift will be key to our efforts to help to transform the way care is coordinated and delivered to women and their families across the communities OhioHealth serves," said Jason Melillo, MD, senior vice president of service lines for OhioHealth. "Navigating a health journey can be overwhelming, and we want to help ensure no woman has to figure it out alone."

Care navigation has become an increasingly important part of the patient experience, especially for women who often manage not only their own health, but the health of their families. By pairing patients with a dedicated navigator, the hub aims to remove common barriers to care, from scheduling confusion to a lack of clarity around next steps or specialists.

"We are deeply grateful for the Fishel Foundation's generosity and for a donor whose personal experience has inspired such a meaningful investment in women's health," said Karen Morrison, president, OhioHealth Foundation and senior vice president, OhioHealth. "This commitment reflects exactly the kind of individualized, compassionate care we envision for every woman who walks through our doors.”

The OhioHealth Women's Health Navigation Hub represents one of several innovative features planned for the Women's Center, which will bring together a wide range of services designed around the needs of women and their families.  

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OhioHealth Riverside Methodist Hospital, already Ohio’s busiest maternity hospital, is undergoing an expansion with the construction of a nearly 600,000-square-foot Women’s Health Center. Set to open in 2027, the center will include:

• 185 inpatient beds
• Labor, delivery, and recovery rooms
• New operating rooms
• Mammogram services
• Obstetric and gynecological care

“We’ve engaged with a lot of women in our community here, and they said that they want more access to care, and so we’re proud to be a partner with them to deliver upon that,” Kristina Stuecher, vice president and project executive of the OhioHealth Women’s Health Center, told NBC4 anchor Jerod Smalley.

The new tower, located at the front of the hospital near State Route 315, will keep Riverside Methodist Hospital well-connected to ensure patient safety and convenience.

Downtown Columbus is also seeing major growth, and OhioHealth Grant Medical Center is expanding right along with it.

In early March, Grant Medical Center will open a new 33,000-square-foot Primary Care Center with more than 50 patient rooms, also serving as home to the hospital’s residency program. Shortly after, phase two of Grant’s $400 million expansion will begin, with construction of a seven-story trauma center tower at the corner of Town Street and 6th Street. This facility is expected to open in 2028.

“Downtown is growing, and we want to be able to serve the residents as well as those who are working downtown,” said Jean Halpin, president of OhioHealth Grant Medical Center, told NBC4. “We’re seeing lots of people start to migrate back down into the office setting, and so being able to have that anchor here is really important. That’s our investment into the future of medicine.”

OhioHealth Dublin Methodist Hospital is also preparing for expansion, adding inpatient beds, critical care capacity and jobs, scheduled for completion in 2030. 

“Employers look for strength in hospitals, strength in schools, strength in community, and by being an anchor as OhioHealth serving the largest population here, that really makes us a good partner for employers as well as attractive for people to come here to Columbus,” Halpin said.