Article Originally Published on Pittsburg Business Times

Highmark Health and Allegheny Health Network unveiled $700 million in construction and expansion for the next five years, including a 160-bed hospital AHN will build in Wexford and four smaller neighborhood hospitals.

The Wexford hospital will be located in Pine Township next to the AHN Wexford Health + Wellness Pavilion that opened in 2014. It will be a full-service hospital that will break ground the middle of next year and be up and running in 2018.

It also announced a joint venture with Emerus to build four so-called neighborhood hospitals with about a dozen inpatient beds and emergency care.

Also part of the five-year plan will be an expansion of the Jefferson Hospital emergency department, expansion at Forbes Hospital in Monroeville and the expansion of a neonatal intensive care unit at West Penn Hospital.

It’s about services strategically located north, south, east and west to provide care closer to home.

“It isn’t about a brick-and-mortar strategy,” said Highmark Health CEO David Holmberg.

The expansions and new hospitals will have about 800 jobs.