Over the past several years, hospital construction in the United States has boomed. The hospital industry spent nearly $100 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars in the past five years on new facilities, up 47 percent from the previous five years, according to the Census Bureau. Those statistics, coupled with an expected increase in demand for healthcare from an aging population, have given investors ample reason to pay attention to the medical real estate market.

Currently, several trends are shaping the market, but they all can be described by one single overarching trend: the push to bring medical services closer to the patient. Gone are the days when the large hospital was the absolute centerpiece of all medical practices. Today, regional hospitals, specialty treatment facilities, acute care and rehab hospitals, and medical campuses in the suburbs reign.

Small neighborhood medical clinics are springing up in retail centers as well. Many of these clinics provide bas