Orlando Health Lake Mary Hospital earns county's first resuscitation center designation

Orlando Health Lake Mary Hospital became Seminole County’s first Primary Florida Resuscitation Center of Excellence on June 26, placing the Lake Mary campus into a statewide system designed to speed cardiac arrest care from the street to the hospital bed.

The designation matters because survival in a cardiac arrest depends on how quickly first responders, dispatchers and hospital teams move from CPR and stabilization to advanced treatment. The Florida Association of EMS Medical Directors describes the FRCE program as a statewide network built to improve cardiac arrest outcomes through hospital attestation and EMS involvement, and Florida Department of Health materials say more than 350,000 people suffer sudden cardiac arrest outside a hospital each year in the U.S., with only about 1 in 10 surviving.

For Seminole County, the new status gives Lake Mary a formal role in that chain. It signals that ambulances and fire rescue crews can work with the hospital under shared resuscitation protocols, a step that can strengthen confidence that patients needing immediate specialized care will have a receiving facility inside the county.

The recognition also places Orlando Health Lake Mary Hospital alongside other hospitals in the system that have earned the same distinction. Orlando Health South Lake Hospital was named Lake County’s first Primary Florida Resuscitation Center of Excellence on Feb. 26, 2026, and Orlando Health Melbourne Hospital received Brevard County’s first designation on April 27, 2026.

Orlando Health says the Lake Mary campus reflects its continued commitment to Seminole County, where it has served the community for 40 years. The hospital opened Jan. 11, 2025, with 124 beds in a 455,000-square-foot facility that can expand to 240 beds. The campus includes operating rooms, catheterization labs, interventional radiology, a vascular lab, an ICU and a full-service emergency department.

The emergency room has served the community since 2019 and includes 25 treatment rooms, imaging, an outpatient pharmacy, a lab draw station, access to full ambulatory services and a helipad. Next door, the 60,000-square-foot Orlando Health Medical Pavilion - Lake Mary adds outpatient cardiology and cardiac rehab, giving the corridor along Rinehart Road a larger medical footprint than it had before the hospital opened.

The hospital also crossed another milestone early in its first year, welcoming its 500th baby on July 6, 2025. With the new resuscitation designation, the campus now carries a bigger emergency role as well as its growing role in routine care, childbirth and outpatient specialty services.