Children's hospital to open in Hoffman Estates
Suburban parents with sick children know how exhausting it can be to drive to Chicago children's hospitals for specialized pediatric medical services.
Soon, that commute downtown might not be necessary.
After five years of planning and fundraising, the Alexian Brothers Hospital Network is ready to break ground on its new Alexian Brothers Children's Hospital in Hoffman Estates.
Construction is set to begin this spring on the $117 million stand-alone building next to St. Alexius Medical Center on Barrington Road. Funded entirely by private sources and charitable donations, the facility could open as soon as 2013.
“Short of cancer treatment or a transplant, everything can be done here,” said Marcy Traxler, Alexian Brothers' director of pediatric service line. “Ninety-eight percent of what goes wrong with a child we'll be able to take care of.”
The hospital will gear its services to ages 0 to 18 and will feature state-of-the-art equipment, some of which can't be found at any other hospital in Illinois — including a top-tier MRI brain scan machine and a MEG Center that helps diagnose epilepsy.
The hospital will be staffed with dozens of pediatric specialists, such as a geneticist and pediatric neurosurgeons. There also will be private patient rooms and a Level 3 Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, to help newborns with seizures or complex neurological problems.
Even for children who don't have chronic medical conditions, more specialized care will be available for common problems like sports injuries.
“Specialty care only means something to you when you need it. Your child might be injured in a soccer game, and then all of a sudden you'll need it, and you'll have the best specialists right here,” Traxler said.
Dr. Hossam AbdelSalam, Alexian Brothers' director of pediatric neurology, said Alexian already has started expanding their pediatric services in the main hospital. Once the new children's hospital is open, they'll have space for things like their pediatric brain center, pediatric headache clinic, epilepsy monitoring unit, and concussion clinic.
“When you have a free-standing hospital, everything — all the staff — is directed to pediatrics. It's specifically designed for children, and it's dedicated to a child's needs,” AbdelSalam said. “When it comes to admission, they won't have to go downtown.”
Unlike some of the children's hospital-within-a-hospital programs across the suburbs, AbdelSalam said Alexian Brothers Children's Hospital will allow most tests, evaluations and surgeries to be done on-site.
The demand for pediatric services is on the rise as the number of children in the suburbs continues to grow. Alexian Brothers estimates the number of children in the suburbs will grow by 25 percent in the next 25 years.
The hospital will not only help parents, but the area's economy. Hoffman Estates' Director of Economic Development Gary Skoog didn't have exact numbers, but said it will create jobs and sales tax revenues from people working and staying in the area.
“Just in a general sense, it's a great new service to the community and the region to offer this kind of specialized care,” he said. “It'll definitely have a positive financial impact on the community.”
For more details on the Alexian Brothers Children Hospital, see www.myalexiankids.net.