Grayslake emergency center first of its kind in the state
Lake County residents soon will have access to emergency room services in Grayslake, though not through a traditional hospital.
The Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board on Wednesday approved Lake Forest Hospital's request to transform its Grayslake Acute Care Center at 1475 E. Belvidere Road into a freestanding emergency center. Starting in January, ambulances will be able to take patients there for treatment of minor, outpatient emergency room needs.
It's the first project of its kind in the state approved since a revised state law allowing creation of freestanding emergency centers went into effect in September 2007, said Kelly Jacobec, Illinois Department of Public Health spokeswoman.
There are no hospitals providing emergency care in northwestern Lake County. Ambulances transport patients to emergency departments at Condell Medical Center in Libertyville, Lake Forest Hospital, Vista East Medical Center in Waukegan, Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital in Barrington or even farther in McHenry County.
Thomas J. McAfee, president and CEO of Lake Forest Hospital, said Thursday the Grayslake emergency center will not compete with Vista Health System's Lindenhurst hospital proposal set to go before the facilities planning board in December.
"We have been working on advancing a freestanding emergency center for more than two years," he said. "The inpatient applications really are altogether different."
The Grayslake emergency center is not designed to be a trauma center and will offer only outpatient services.
"We don't expect to see this having any impact on us because we're talking about two different things," Vista Health spokeswoman Valerie Culver said. "We're proposing a full-service hospital, which will have a full-service emergency department. It's a much different animal."
Vista has been trying to gain approval for its hospital plan, which now calls for a more than $106 million, 190,836-square-foot, 132-bed acute care facility near Deep Lake Road and Route 132 on the site of the existing Vista Surgery Center.
Earlier this year, the facilities planning board issued an intent to deny for hospital proposals in western Lake County filed by Vista and rival Advocate Health Care due to an overabundance of hospital beds in the region.
Advocate later dropped its Round Lake hospital proposal because of its merger with Condell in May, clearing the way for Vista to revive its proposal.
Lake Forest Hospital officials said they recognized early it would be difficult to win approval for a new hospital, but they wanted to improve emergency response times for patients in the Grayslake area.
"We thought it was a smarter alternative because the state planning board requires there be a need for inpatient beds in order to build a hospital," said Jane Griffin, Lake Forest Hospital spokeswoman. "What's really needed in the western part of Lake County is emergency care."
And, it was cheaper to convert the existing acute care center into an emergency center for $110,000, Griffin said. The equipment and staff was already in place.
The Grayslake emergency center will be open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and staffed with board-certified emergency physicians and trauma-trained nurses. It will include emergency room equipment, a helipad and an onsite ambulance.
It will serve Antioch, Fox Lake, Grayslake, Hainesville, Lindenhurst, Lake Villa, Round Lake and Round Lake Beach.