Advocate Health Care is broadening its South Side presence through a $1 billion investment that includes expanding outpatient care and building a new hospital on the old U.S. Steel site.
The new, 52-bed hospital will replace Advocate Trinity Hospital, a 205-bed hospital that's been on the South Side since 1895.
The hospital system hopes the investment closes Chicago's 30-year life expectancy gap between residents on the South and North sides, Advocate Trinity Hospital President Michelle Blakely told the Chicago Sun-Times.
"Over the next 10 years, we hope to change the trajectory of health outcomes on the South Side," Blakely said. "We are striving to create health and wellness opportunities in a community that has been underserved and suffers from health disparities."
The announcement was made Tuesday at Advocate's Imani Village outpatient clinic on the Southeast Side. Several local and state elected leaders joined the announcement and sung Advocate's praises for bringing more health care to the South Side.
"We're going to build a new model of care that is designed to prevent and better manage those common conditions that contribute to those shorter life expectancies," Advocate's President Dia Nichols said Tuesday. "A new model that keeps people out of the hospital, that meets them upstream before they become patients in the hospital."
The new hospital will include 36 surgery beds, four ICU beds, eight observation beds, a four-bed dialysis unit and an emergency room with 16 bays.
The $300 million project will sit on 23 acres on the old U.S. Steel South Works site south and west of Lake Shore Drive and north of 81st Street.
The new hospital will be considerably fewer beds compared to Trinity. But that was a deliberate choice, Blakely said. Trinity currently averages only around 71 patients at one time.
"Hospital beds are highly underutilized on the South Side. Only 50% of hospital beds on the South Side are being used," Blakely said. "That is why we're investing hundreds of millions of dollars in outpatient care, community health and wellness services."
Advocate hopes to break ground on the new hospital late next year. The 115-year-old Trinity Hospital at 2320 E. 93rd St. will remain open until the new hospital is complete. Advocate plans on then demolishing the site and putting in a green space.
"This is transformative for the 7th Ward, especially for the South Shore and South Chicago communities,” Ald. Greg Mitchell (7th) told the Sun-Times. “This vacant site has stood as a symbol of disinvestment and missed opportunities that have deeply impacted the entire Southeast Side."
The investment includes a $25 million workforce development program that will lead to 1,000 jobs for South Siders within the next three years, Blakely said.
A total of $700 million will go toward expanding primary care and outpatient services. Advocate will open 10 neighborhood care sites in community organizations like churches and community centers. The first one will open at the South Side YMCA in Woodlawn early next year. Advocate plan to open three sites a year over the next few years.
Those sites will help with everyday health services like treating the flu or the common cold, managing chronic diseases, giving yearly physicals, doing lab testing and refilling prescriptions. Staff will connect patients to primary care providers and help them access food, housing and transportation to medical appointments.
"What the community wants is for us to bring the resources to them, and that's what we're doing here," Blakely said.
That funding will lead to 85,000 more doctor appointments each year across all South Side sites, Blakely said. Advocate will also offer more OB-GYN services and 5,000 more annual appointments, create a free prescription program for qualifying patients and deploy a mobile medicine vehicle that will provide primary care services throughout the community.
The hospital system will expand the Imani Village clinic at 901 E. 95th St. Advocate will extend the clinic's hours and add doctors, appointments and services like imaging, specialty care and medication refills.
"This is really exciting because if we have a model focused on prevention first, we're addressing the root causes of chronic diseases," said Tony Hampton, a primary care doctor with Advocate.
Hampton said patients without a reliable, nearby primary care clinic often go to the hospital for routine care, an expensive and often unnecessary choice.
"Reducing hospital admissions lowers the cost of health care and improves patient outcomes," Hampton said. "The ambulatory care model is about reshaping how we think about health care and focusing on why you got sick in the first place and showing you how to prevent diseases and put diseases into remission."
Related Midwest is working with Advocate to develop the new hospital on the north side of the U.S. Steel site. Advocate joins the future multibillion-dollar quantum computer campus that will anchor the southern end of the area.
