The health system plans to expand community sites and services, beef up its chronic care management and SDOH programs, add 1,000 new employees and build a new hospital to replace the aging Advocate Trinity Hospital.
Advocate Health Care has announced an ambitious expansion into Chicago’s South Side to the tune of $1 billion.
The Illinois-based arm of the national Advocate Health network, the third largest in the country, is planning to invest $300 million in a new lakefront hospital to replace the 115-year-old Advocate Trinity Hospital. In addition, it plans to spend more than $500 million on expanded outpatient care through community programs and services, $200 million on new hospital and outpatient services addressing chronic disease and social determinants of health, and $25 million on workforce development programs.
"We have built a model that gets at the heart of chronic disease and wellness through much greater access to extensive prevention, health management tools and education designed to help South Side residents live their healthiest lives," Michelle Blakely, PhD, President of Advocate Trinity Hospital, said in a press release. "We need to provide the community with the necessary resources to stay well – where we live, work, play and worship – and that takes a comprehensive plan."
The focus of the expansion is on community health and wellness, and represents one of the largest investment ever by a health system. Executives say the plan was forged over the past year through more than 20 listening sessions with South Side residents. It addresses "significant health inequities" in those neighborhoods, including four times as many deaths due to diabetes as the North Side.
Among the planned investments:
- Adding capacity to accommodate 85,000 new appointments per year.
- Establishing 10 new Advocate Health Care Neighborhood Care locations.
- Redesigning the health system’s financial assistance program to ensure that no one goes without care.
- Launching a mobile medicine unit to provide primary care services.
- Expanding access to pharmacy services, including free prescription programs.
- Expanding the Advocate Food Farmacy program.
- Expanding access to pre- and post-natal care.
The new hospital, to be built on 23 acres of land that now houses a former U.S. Steel Works complex, will feature 52 beds, 36 medical surgery beds, four ICU beds, eight dedicated observation beds, and a four-bed dialysis unit. It will also house a cardiac catheterization lab, enhanced testing and imaging services and a 16-bed Emergency Department. Once the new hospital is open, the old hospital will be demolished and replaced by green space.
The health system’s workforce development plans include adding 1,000 new positions within the next three years, as well as job forums and a mobile recruitment van to connect with students and others in the community.
Eric Wicklund is the associate content manager and senior editor for Innovation at HealthLeaders.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Recent surveys indicate residents of Chicago's South Side are at increased risk of chronic diseases and death due to a lack of access to healthcare services.
Advocate Health Care, the Illinois-based arm of the national Advocate Health system, is launching a massive community health program aimed at addressing those disparities.
The project includes $25 million in workforce development initiatives.