- Details
- By Tribal Business News Staff
- Health Care
The Cherokee Nation has completed a $470 million replacement hospital in Tahlequah, expanding the tribe's health care capacity with a six-story, 400,000-square-foot facility that opened to patients July 11.
The new W.W. Hastings Hospital includes 127 beds and adds services including a neonatal intensive care unit, hospice care, a surgical center and a rooftop helipad. The facility replaces the tribe's existing 180,000-square-foot hospital, which opened in the mid-1980s.
The hospital connects by skybridge to the Cherokee Nation Outpatient Health Center, creating an integrated medical campus. Additional services include emergency and intensive care, imaging, laboratory and pharmacy operations.
The project is part of roughly $1.12 billion the Cherokee Nation has invested in health care facilities and equipment over the past decade. According to the tribe's 2025 economic impact report, Cherokee Nation Health Services generated more than $2 billion in statewide economic output during fiscal year 2025 while supporting nearly 11,500 Oklahoma jobs.
W.W. Hastings Hospital currently employs about 700 health care workers. Cherokee Nation plans to add another 200 positions in fiscal year 2027.
The former hospital will be renovated into the Cherokee Nation Nursing and Allied Health Education Center through a partnership with the University of Oklahoma. The $30 million project, announced earlier this year, will house an OU College of Nursing satellite campus and is expected to open in 2027 as part of the tribe's effort to expand Oklahoma's health care workforce.
