Medical tourism in Las Vegas not just a dream for Eric Hilton

The keen blue eyes that once helped watch over a world-famous hotel corporation aren’t as sharp as they used to be. These days, Eric Hilton moves more slowly than in his prime.

His voice is soft, his words measured. But when Hilton speaks, the clarity of his message is undeniable: Las Vegas can be known as a great place for medical care.

“I’ve been here for 20 some-odd years now, and it seems like every year when you ask somebody where they’re going for their operation they respond, ‘McCarran Airport,’ ” Hilton says in the kitchen of his Spanish Trail home. “With the facilities that now exist here in the city, there’s no need for people to have to go outside the city to get their operations and medical treatments. The only thing that has been missing are super facilities.”

Now 83, Hilton is determined to accelerate that transition by playing an integral role with the creation and development of the Nevada Medical Center project. The NMC is a nonprofit organization focused on improving the standard of health care available to Nevadans and visitors.

As ever, he’ll put his money where his mouth is.

But Hilton’s zeal for this latest project — he had a vision to end hunger in Las Vegas and played an essential role in the creation of the Three Square Food Bank that now distributes 34 million pounds of food per year in Southern Nevada — transcends checkbook philanthropy.

When he imagines what the Nevada Medical Center can be, Hilton clearly sees a time when Las Vegas offers a group of nonprofit academic and governmental medical providers, under a virtual campus of medical excellence comparable to collaborative work done at Houston’s Texas Medical Center, with which he’s been closely associated for decades. These days Hilton is working with other NMC board members and Julie Murray, principal and CEO of Moonridge Group, which is creating a philanthropy strategy that can help make that vision a reality. In October, the NMC board and Moonridge presented a feasibility study that lays out the Nevada Medical Center’s potential to greatly increase collaboration and change the Southern Nevada medical landscape in dramatic ways.

Whether the launch of the project eventually takes shape downtown in the medical corridor anchored by the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, or in any of several locations across the valley and state, Hilton believes providing breakthrough medical care will place Las Vegas on the map in ways its founding fathers never imagined.

“When you stop and think of what this could mean for the city of Las Vegas, well, I can tell you from firsthand experience living in Houston for 30 years what it meant there,” Hilton says of that famous Texas medical campus of more than 44 million square feet. “They have people from all over the world coming to Houston, and likewise here in Las Vegas there will be a tremendous number of people who will choose to come here because they can do so many other things other than sit around waiting on medical treatment for themselves and their loved ones.”

The Texas center not only has increased the availability of quality health care, it has produced thousands of jobs and increased business at restaurants, shops and hotels — something Hilton knows plenty about.

But he believes the Nevada Medical Center concept will transcend medical tourism. He thinks it’s capable of changing the very fabric of Las Vegas.

For those tempted to write off Hilton’s effort as the good intentions of a wise old man, Murray offers a thought: “With Three Square, it was Eric’s vision. And the community rallied around it to support that vision. Eric is one of the most strategic, visionary leaders I’ve ever met.”

Now Hilton has his sights set on making the Nevada Medical Center a reality.

“I think there’s been so many people complain about Las Vegas not being a good place to get your medical work done, that I think that once they see what’s going to happen there will be an avalanche of good doctors and a lot of patients,” he says. “That’s what happened in Texas, and it certainly can happen here.”

Eric Hilton can see it clearly, and he hopes you’ll share his vision.

John L. Smith’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Email him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call 702-383-0295. Follow him on Twitter @jlnevadasmith