The new Orthopedic Building at Rush University Medical Center is now open. The 220,000-square-foot building, located at 1611 W. Harrison Street, offers comprehensive outpatient care on four floors.

The building features 60 examination rooms, six x-ray and imaging suites, an imaging center with CT and two MRIs, full-service physical and occupational therapy facilities, orthotics and prosthetic services, and research facilities of the Department of Orthopedic Surgery. These include laboratories for Human Motion Analysis, Biomechanics, Tribology (the study of friction, lubrication and wear) and Implant Retrieval.

The building also contains offices for all orthopedic surgeons, researchers and staff, a conference and learning center, and retail space on the ground floor. Rush Rheumatology clinical services will move to the fifth floor of the new Orthopedic Building in the future.

"For the first time in our history, orthopedic surgery's departmental administration, research and educational activities will be in close proximity to the outpatient clinical operations," said Dr. Joshua Jacobs, chairman of the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at Rush. "This arrangement is optimal to promote interaction between the many productive members of our department and will enhance our translational research efforts."

Midwest Orthopaedics at Rush, the private practice medical group whose 38 physicians are on the Rush faculty, will relocate its clinical facilities and physician offices currently in Rush's nearby Professional Building and at 800 S. Wells in the River City building complex to the new Orthopedic Building.

The building marks an important milestone in the 10-year Rush Transformation, a comprehensive campus redevelopment program that includes a 14-floor new hospital building currently under construction directly across the street from the Orthopedic Building. The new Rush hospital building will open in 2012.

For more information about the changes at Rush, visit the Rush Transformation home page.