June 22, 2006

Hospital plans move to Chicago campus

Children’s Memorial Hospital has begun planning for a $800 million hospital on the Chicago campus.

The hospital will be located between Chicago Avenue and Superior Street, just west of Northwestern Memorial Hospital’s new Prentice Women’s Hospital that will open in the fall of 2007.

The move will place Children’s, now located in the Lincoln Park area of Chicago and the primary pediatric teaching hospital for the Feinberg School of Medicine, in close proximity to Feinberg and affiliated medical institutions. This location will improve transitional care for patients with congenital problems or children with chronic illnesses.

Groundbreaking for the new facility is expected to take place in 2008. The new hospital would open in 2012 with 275 private single-bed rooms and eventually expand to 343. This would enable Children’s to treat 12,000 or more patients annually, compared with 9,000 at present.

Children’s is home to nearly 500 faculty members in the Feinberg School’s department of pediatrics and serves as the training base for 83 pediatrics residents and fellows. All medical students at the Feinberg School complete their pediatrics rotations at Children’s.