Advocate spending $1 billion on new hospital and outpatient services

Photo: Luis Alvarez/Getty Images

Chicago-based Advocate Health Care is planning to spend $1 billion to improve access to primary and specialty care, as well as wellness services, by investing in a new hospital and extended outpatient programs.

The wellness model, as Advocate frames it, will entail putting $300 million of that funding toward the new hospital, which will feature 52 beds with 36 medical surgery beds, four ICU beds, eight dedicated observation beds, a four-bed dialysis unit and an emergency room with 16 beds/bays, enabling Advocate to expand services and beds if there's a need.

In addition to providing inpatient care, the new hospital will have a cardiac catheterization lab, an enhanced emergency department, and diagnostic testing and imaging, including new services like robotic surgical procedures.

Advocate said it will seek to lessen the environmental impact of the new hospital through eco-friendly design considerations, while the current Advocate Trinity Hospital on 93rd Street will continue serving patients until the new hospital is built and has opened, at which point the old facility will be demolished and turned into green space.

WHAT'S THE IMPACT

The largest chunk of the money, more than $500 million, will be devoted to expanding outpatient care, with Advocate adding 85,000 new annual appointments and establishing Advocate Health Care Neighborhood Care locations – 10 of them in total. These will virtually connect patients to providers in familiar places in the community such as churches and community centers to treat minor maladies such as flu, cold, asthma and sore throat, as well as provide yearly physicals, medication refills and chronic disease management.

Another portion of the money, roughly $200 million, will be invested in hospital and outpatient programs and services, expanding management of chronic disease and addressing social determinants of health such as housing, transportation and access to healthy food.

As part of that, Advocate said it will be expanding access to pharmacy services with free prescription programs for patients in need and medication home delivery because of limited access to a retail pharmacy. Additionally, Advocate is piloting pharmacy kiosks at select locations to increase access to over-the-counter and prescription medications.

To address Black maternal and fetal health, Advocate said it will expand access to pre- and post-natal care by adding 5,000 annual OB-GYN visits, plus a new set of programs and wrap-around services that address aspects of pregnancy ranging from patient navigation and education to medication and connection to midwives and social workers.

Another $25 million from the investment will be put toward workforce development, Advocate said, which includes hiring more than 1,000 new employees within the next three years.

THE LARGER TREND

Advocate epidemiologists and researchers reviewed two years of data for a group of patients who were served in a facility located on the South Side of Chicago. Patients who visited primary care had better clinical utilization, fewer new chronic disease diagnoses and better managed chronic disease during the following year compared to patients who had not visited primary care.

The research found patients who visited primary care during year one were 14% less likely to be hospitalized during year two, in addition to a 33% decrease in uncontrolled diabetes, 24% decrease in uncontrolled high cholesterol and 21% decrease in uncontrolled hypertension.

Jeff Lagasse is editor of Healthcare Finance News.
Email: jlagasse@himss.org
Healthcare Finance News is a HIMSS Media publication.