{"id":72343,"date":"2026-06-29T18:51:32","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T22:51:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=72343"},"modified":"2026-06-29T18:51:42","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T22:51:42","slug":"orlando-health-watson-clinic-lakeland-highlands-hospital-has-set-its-official-opening-date-for-july-8-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2026\/06\/29\/orlando-health-watson-clinic-lakeland-highlands-hospital-has-set-its-official-opening-date-for-july-8-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Orlando Health Watson Clinic Lakeland Highlands Hospital has set its official opening date for July 8, 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It is official! After more than six years of planning and construction, the Orlando Health Watson Clinic Lakeland Highlands Hospital<\/strong> has set its official opening date for July 8, 2026<\/strong>.<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Located at 4000 Lakeland Highlands Road, this massive $500+ million facility is a major milestone for south Lakeland\u2014marking the first brand-new hospital to open within the city limits in more than a century.<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is a quick breakdown of what the new 550,000-square-foot facility is bringing to the community:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Key Stats & Capabilities<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
    \n
  • Capacity:<\/strong> Over 300 inpatient beds and 49 emergency department beds.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Staffing:<\/strong> The opening brings more than 1,500 new jobs and roughly 75 physicians to the area, connecting Watson Clinic\u2019s existing local provider network directly with Orlando Health\u2019s specialized hospital services.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Advanced Specialty Care:<\/strong> Features 11 state-of-the-art operating rooms, a dedicated interventional radiology suite equipped with an advanced biplane radiology scanner for complex stroke care, and diagnostic\/interventional cardiac catheterization labs.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Center for Women and Babies:<\/strong> Offers dedicated labor and delivery suites designed so patients can labor, deliver, and recover in the same room. A 12-bed Level II Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) is scheduled to open shortly after the main launch.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
    \n

    Looking Ahead:<\/strong> Orlando Health is also actively building a separate, freestanding emergency department in North Lakeland (located at Lakeland Park Center), which is scheduled to follow this opening and begin seeing patients in October 2026.<\/sup><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    It is official! After more than six years of planning and construction, the Orlando Health Watson Clinic Lakeland Highlands Hospital has set its official opening date for July 8, 2026.… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72004,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNlwvMDZcL0RKSV8wNzg3LXNjYWxlZC53ZWJwP2ZpdD0xMDI0JTJDNzY3JnNzbD0xIiwidHh0IjoiT3JsYW5kbyBIZWFsdGggV2F0c29uIENsaW5pYyBMYWtlbGFuZCBIaWdobGFuZHMgSG9zcGl0YWwgaGFzIHNldCBpdHMgb2ZmaWNpYWwgb3BlbmluZyBkYXRlIGZvciBKdWx5IDgsIDIwMjYiLCJ0ZW1wbGF0ZSI6ImRvaXMiLCJmb250IjoiIiwiYmxvZ19pZCI6MTYzMDQwNjYxfQ.2ydD4KgKBKxjwd9l0lHkjKAYRtelzaFr6KNxUJtRlaMMQ"},"version":2,"media_source":"sig","attached_media":[{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/jetpack.com\/redirect\/?source=sigenerate&query=t%3DeyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNlwvMDZcL0RKSV8wNzg3LXNjYWxlZC53ZWJwP2ZpdD0xMDI0JTJDNzY3JnNzbD0xIiwidHh0IjoiT3JsYW5kbyBIZWFsdGggV2F0c29uIENsaW5pYyBMYWtlbGFuZCBIaWdobGFuZHMgSG9zcGl0YWwgaGFzIHNldCBpdHMgb2ZmaWNpYWwgb3BlbmluZyBkYXRlIGZvciBKdWx5IDgsIDIwMjYiLCJ0ZW1wbGF0ZSI6ImRvaXMiLCJmb250IjoiIiwiYmxvZ19pZCI6MTYzMDQwNjYxfQ.2ydD4KgKBKxjwd9l0lHkjKAYRtelzaFr6KNxUJtRlaMMQ","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[6481],"tags":[15045],"class_list":["post-72343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","tag-orlando-health-watson-clinic-lakeland-highlands-hospital-has-set-its-official-opening-date-for-july-8-2026"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72343"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72344,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72343\/revisions\/72344"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}