Sanford built a hotel on top of its Sioux Falls orthopedic hospital

The new Sanford Orthopedic Hospital and Highpoint Hotel in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, opened earlier in 2026 as a single nine-story building: 12 operating rooms, 19 inpatient rooms, an intraoperative MRI — and, on the top two floors, a 56-room hotel with a bar, restaurant and a sky lobby with a fireplace. 'It's much more convenient for patients to go down an elevator ride for eight floors and check in for surgery than commuting across town or in some cases commuting hundreds of miles,' says Andy Munce, president and CEO of Sanford Health's Sioux Falls region.

Hotels near hospitals are common, but they are 'just a place to stay', says Luis Zapiain, director of hospitality at HKS, the architecture firm that designed the building. What Sanford wanted was an elevated experience the health system could operate itself and offer to patients holistically. HKS brought its hospitality studio and healthcare specialists together for a rare joint effort, designing the two halves so neither steps on the other's toes.

Munce frames the hotel as an extension of the hospital: patients traveling for procedures, subspecialty care or ICU-type scenarios 'have a lot on their minds', and the health system's job is to absorb that stress — a hotel stay tuned to a surgery schedule rather than a tourist calendar.

It removes the worst night before surgery — a long drive or an unfamiliar motel — by putting the bed in the same building as the operating rooms.

Running the hotel itself lets the health system tune housekeeping, food and scheduling to surgical reality instead of hotel conventions.

HKS pairing its hospitality and healthcare studios in one design is a rarity in hospital architecture, built for one continuous patient journey.

It monetises a building's top floors — usually mechanical space or ordinary wards — with a service rural patients already need.

When your customers travel far for a stressful appointment, sell them the night before it: convenience is part of the treatment.

As of mid-2026 the combined Sanford Orthopedic Hospital and Highpoint Hotel was open in Sioux Falls, with Fast Company profiling it as a patient-centric amenity few other hospitals can offer and a template for rural healthcare travel.