Celebration Marks Completion of New Hospital at Rush University Medical Center 

The new hospital building at Rush University Medical Center, located at the corner of Ashland and Harrison avenues, 1620 West Harrison St., is the cornerstone of the 10-year campus transformation. Called the Tower, the new building is part of the Rush Transformation plan to reorient the facilities and care around patients and their families. It is designed to reduce costs, improve outcomes and the patient experience.

"Chicago is home to some of the nation’s best medical facilities, including Rush University Medical Center,” Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said. “Rush’s new hospital and related community development projects have been and will continue to be an important catalyst for the revitalization of Chicago’s West Side. Chicagoans and area residents will benefit from a world-class facility that serves not only its community, but also the entire Chicago region."

"From the outset of our planning, we had one overriding goal — to improve every aspect of the patient and family experience and to further enhance the quality of our care while creating an efficient, bright, environmentally sustainable facility with the most advanced technology available,” said Rush CEO Larry J. Goodman, MD.

The unique butterfly shape of the new hospital is designed to improve patient outcomes. Long before ground was broken in September 2008, countless doctors, nurses and staff as well as patients provided the design team with their insights on critical features necessary to create a facility that would increase patient safety and comfort, improve quality and promote staff efficiency. Rush’s architects, developed the hospital’s innovative butterfly-shaped design to accommodate those priorities.

The new Tower at Rush has 304 individual adult and critical care beds on the top five floors, within the Herb Family Acute and Critical Care Tower. Rush will have a total 664 beds in operation across the existing and new facilities. The ground floor will house the McCormick Foundation Center for Advanced Emergency Response, designed to provide an unprecedented level of readiness for large-scale health emergencies from a mass outbreak of an infectious disease, a bioterrorist attack or an accident that spills hazardous materials. The center houses an expanded emergency department with 60 treatment bays with a surge capacity of 133 percent.

Three consecutive floors at the base of the building are devoted to the interventional platform, where diagnostic testing, surgical and interventional services, and recovery are located within a short distance of each other, resulting in enhanced collaboration between medical specialists while making services more convenient for patients and families. It includes 42 procedure rooms with enlarged operating rooms to accommodate new technology. Rush is one of a small number of leading medical centers in the country and the only center in Illinois to incorporate the interventional platform.

The third floor houses the Mary Jo and John Boler Center for Advanced Imaging. Advances in imaging using MRI, CT, fluoroscopy, nuclear medicine, ultrasound and other methods are revolutionizing how heart disease, cancer and a multitude of other conditions are diagnosed and treated.

The Tower is the major component of Rush’s 10-year, $1 billion campus redevelopment project called the Rush Transformation, which blends new construction, renovations of select campus buildings and investments in leading technology that includes a comprehensive electronic health information system. It is the largest capital project in Rush's 174-year history.

Rush's new Tower will be Chicago’s first full-service, “green” hospital. It was designed to conserve energy and water, reduce waste and use sustainable building materials. Rush is seeking Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) gold certification for the Tower. LEED recognizes organizations that design and construct environmentally responsible and efficient buildings. Other new buildings at Rush, a new parking structure and Orthopedic Building completed in 2009, were also built with a host of sustainable features.

"From the outset of our planning, we have worked to develop new models of care and to adapt to changes in the health care environment that will better enable Rush to address critical issues regarding access to care, containing and reducing costs, achieving better outcomes and ensuring that the patient is at the center of the health care continuum,” said Peter Butler, president and chief operating officer of Rush.

Photo caption: Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel at the ribbon-cutting event for Rush's new hospital. Seated behind him are Rush CEO Larry Goodman, MD, and Rush President Peter Butler.

More Information at Your Fingertips:
Read the complete news release.
Learn more about the Rush Transformation.