University of Chicago to Build Level 1 Trauma Center on South Side

University of Chicago Medical Center will build a Level 1 adult trauma center on the South Side in Hyde Park, the university announced Thursday.

The decision is a reversal of a plan announced in September to partner with Sinai Health System to partner on a Level 1 trauma center at Holy Cross Hospital in Marquette Park.

UChicago Medicine cited its Level 1 pediatric trauma program and Burn and Complex Wound Center as reasons to integrate the Level 1 trauma center into the Hyde Park location. The university had resisted doing so for years and received much criticism from segments of the community.

UChicago Medicine had previously announced plans to build a $35 million emergency room in Hyde Park alongside the existing acute care center.

“At the end of the day, we realized that integrating all of these services on one site, on our campus, made the most sense for South Side patients,” said Sharon O’Keefe, President of the University of Chicago Medical Center, in a statement.

When the new trauma center is built, some of the most violence-plagued communities on the South Side will have a Level 1 trauma center nearby in the city. Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn was the closest Level 1 trauma center in south Cook County. When Michael Reese Hospital in Bronzeville closed its trauma center in 1991, the city lost its only South Side Level 1 trauma unit.

The lack of a Level 1 trauma unit in the city means some people suffering serious wounds must travel longer distances to receive appropriate treatment.

Other Level 1 adult trauma centers are in Maywood in the west suburbs, Park Ridge and Evanston in the north suburbs, and in Chicago at Stroger Hospital and Mount Sinai on the West Side, and Northwestern Memorial Hospital and Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center on the North Side.

According to a statement on the hospital’s website, the plan includes the following:

• A new and expanded emergency room in close proximity to the Center for Care and Discovery;
• A substantial increase in the number of inpatient beds, which will greatly expand UChicago Medicine’s ability to meet the needs of the community in trauma and emergency care, as well as offering care to patients with serious conditions such as cancer and heart disease or who need complex surgical and other procedures.

A series of regulatory and approval steps to come include:

• A Certificate of Need application will be filed with the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board to expand its licensed bed capacity and emergency department;
• UChicago Medicine will seek approval for a Level 1 adult trauma center from the Illinois Department of Public Health and the Chicago Trauma Network;
• UChicago Medicine will continue to engage the community on these issues going forward;
• A detailed timeline will soon be available.

The previously announced partnership would have invested $40 million in building a Level 1 trauma unit at Holy Cross.

“From the very beginning, what has mattered most is making sure that patients have access to the highest level of trauma care where the needs are great,” said Karen Teitelbaum, president and CEO of Sinai Health System, in a statement. “Ultimately, we are gratified that trauma care will be restored in an area of Chicago that is in urgent need of these services.

“We offer UChicago Medicine our support and more than two decades of Sinai’s Level 1 trauma care expertise as it moves forward with its plans, and look forward to continued collaborations in many facets of clinical care that our institutions have long shared.”