$50 million budget boost advances Kailua-Kona outpatient care center

A $50 million state budget allocation pushed Kailua-Kona’s long-planned outpatient care center ahead, but the money covers only the first phase of a project expected to cost about $100 million. For West Hawaii families who still drive long distances, or fly off island, for routine and specialty care, the new funding is a down payment on a health system that is still years from being fully built.

On May 13, Kona Community Hospital said the West Hawaii Region of Hawaii Health Systems Corporation had secured the money for the outpatient care center, thanking Gov. Josh Green along with Sen. Dru Kanuha, Rep. Nicole Lowen and Rep. Kirstin Kahaloa for their support. State testimony says the funding is for planning, design and site work, not the full build-out. That means the remaining budget gap is still roughly $50 million before the project can be completed.

The outpatient center is part of a larger public-private partnership between Hawaii Health Systems Corporation and The Queen’s Health Systems. The two sides signed a memorandum of understanding to jointly develop the Kona project on three to five acres of land donated by Queen’s to HHSC, adjacent to the future Queen’s hospital site in Kona. Queen’s said in December 2025 that its hospital plan calls for an 80-bed facility with a state-of-the-art emergency department and a helipad for inter-island patient transfers.

The outpatient building is meant to work alongside that hospital, not compete with it. Clayton McGhan, the West Hawaii Region CEO, has said the outpatient side is intended to absorb preventive care and follow-up visits so the hospital can focus on more serious cases. Planned services for the roughly 50,000-square-foot building include general surgery, orthopedics, women’s health, OBGYN and primary care.

The urgency comes from how much care West Hawaii residents already leave the region to get. A 2024 needs assessment found about 40% of inpatient cases and 62% of outpatient procedures for West Hawaii residents occur off-island or outside the region. The same study found North Kona population growth has outpaced outpatient and specialty services, adding travel time, delays in treatment and pressure on emergency departments across Hawaii Island.

For Kailua-Kona and the fast-growing west side, the $50 million budget boost marks a real advance. It does not yet buy the shorter waits, fewer trips and closer-to-home care that residents have been promised, but it does move the project from concept toward construction, with the rest of the funding still to be secured.