Greater Washington is experiencing a medical construction boom.
The reason: Many hospitals are housed in facilities built 40 or 50 years ago and need to be modernized to keep up with technology and new trends in medicine, said Jim Reiter, senior vice president of communications for the Maryland Hospital Association. The region’s population also is growing, he said, and baby boomers are reaching the age where they will need increased medical care.
* 5,995,596: Washington metro area population in 2006
* 6,131,977: population in 2016
* 7,595,461: projected population in 2030
That combination of factors has led to nearly $2.8 billion worth of investments on projects — both anticipated or actually underway — to enlarge, rejuvenate or replace a healthy number of Greater Washington’s hospitals.