It was just last week that Sila Realty Trust announced completion of an $85.5 million healthcare portfolio acquisition whose assets were either micro-hospitals or a facility to offer similar services. It was the latest illustration of the continued growth of this healthcare trend.

The portfolio, located in Arizona and Texas, comprise four built-to-suit micro-hospitals and one freestanding emergency department, totaling approximately 158,000 square feet on a combined 17.5 acres. Each of the micro-hospitals is licensed for 8-inpatient beds, and offers a 13-bed emergency department, operating room, laboratory, diagnostic imaging suite, and a pharmacy. The freestanding emergency department is a 13-bed full-service emergency center, constructed to also offer the same services as the micro-hospitals.

Micro-hospitals have been growing in importance for at least a half dozen years. They are inpatient facilities with a handful of short-stay beds offering some of the same services as larger hospitals—typically emergency services, imaging, pharmacy, lab work and sometimes even outpatient surgeries and primary care—but are cheaper to operate.