Judge Halts Vanderbilt’s Plans For New Rutherford County Hospital

Photo: Vanderbilt University Medical Center Photo Credit: John Partipilo

By Anita Wadhwani [Tennessee Lookout -CC BY-NC-ND 4.0] –

An administrative law judge has rejected plans by Vanderbilt University Medical Center to establish a new Rutherford County hospital, siding with a trio of competing inpatient facilities already operating in and around the fast-growing suburban county.

The high-stakes battle to build a new 42-bed hospital has been ongoing since 2020. Last December, the Tennessee Health Services and Development Agency approved a certificate-of-need for Vanderbilt to build the new facility on 80 acres it already owns in Murfreesboro, with a tentative opening date in 2026.

Two Rutherford County hospitals — Saint Thomas Rutherford Hospital and TriStar StoneCrest Medical Center — along with nearby Williamson Medical Center appealed the decision. And in a ruling released earlier this month, a state judge sided with the three hospitals in concluding that Vanderbilt had failed to show the need for a new facility.

The judge noted that all of the hospitals in operation provide quality care, none of the hospitals was near capacity, all Rutherford County residents have “reasonable access to care” and that Vanderbilt was not seeking to provide services to underserved population groups — all criteria that state may use to approve a new hospital.

The judge dismissed scores of affidavits submitted by local physicians in support of Vanderbilt’s proposed hospital, noting that the granting or denial of approval was “not a popularity context based on a number of signatures or affidavits.” The judge also noted many of the physicians who wrote in support of Vanderbilt had a “shocking lack of knowledge” about services already available to their patients at hospitals in their communities.