Baptist Health is opening a new emergency room at its recently opened medical campus in Silverleaf | Baptist Health
Published on September 18, 2026 at 3:05 pm
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As St. Johns County’s population continues to grow, so too do the number of hospitals and medical offices for its residents.
Medical campuses from both UF Health and Baptist Health will open to the public next week, with continued expansion on the horizon.
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Officials from UF Health celebrated the opening of UF Health Durbin Park with a ribbon-cutting Thursday morning. The campus, on 42.5 acres in north St. Johns, officially opens Tuesday with a 99-bed hospital, a 24-hour emergency department and other medical offices.
Baptist Health will open a new emergency department of its own about 10 miles south in the Silverleaf community. That new emergency department is the latest addition to a medical campus that partially opened in June with doctor’s offices and other services.
It’s all in service of the area’s growing population. St. Johns is among the fastest-growing areas in the entire country. Since 2020, the county estimates that its population has grown by more than 25%, and it is expected to continue growing.
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That population growth has meant more schools, more homes and more hospitals for the people moving to the area.
“As communities grow, the need for healthcare must grow with them,” UF Health St. Johns President Wayne Marshall said in a statement. “This campus creates new opportunities for healthier lives, stronger families and a healthier region overall.”
Baptist Health’s president and CEO, Matthew Zuino, made a similar point in a statement earlier this year.
“More than a million people now call the area surrounding SilverLeaf home,” he said, “and building a medical campus here demonstrates our commitment to ensuring residents have access to quality preventive and specialty care where they live and work.”
Hospitals and jobs
Expansion of the medical sector means more jobs for St. Johns’ growing population, too.
According to data from the county, UF Health is the area’s second-largest employer with more than 1,500 local employees.
St. Johns County Economic Development Director Christine Valliere says the new facilities mark big advancements for not just healthcare access, but job creation.
“The opening of two new healthcare facilities in the same week is a strong indicator of how quickly St. John’s County is growing and how our economy is evolving,” Valliere says. “Healthcare has become an increasingly important part of our employment base, bringing new jobs and investment along with expanding access to services for residents. This kind of investment strengthens and diversifies the local economy while enhancing the quality of life for our residents.”
Other medical offices have opened in recent months, too.
Behavioral healthcare provider Acadia Health recently opened a facility near County Road 210 and Interstate 95, and AdventHealth opened a 12-bed freestanding emergency room near State Road 207 east of I-95.
And just as the population is expected to continue growing, so too are the number of medical offices.
In a statement this summer AdventHealth’s East Florida Division CEO Rob Deininger called the ER “only the beginning of our commitment here.”
