Sarah Bush Lincoln received the green light from the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board (IHFSRB) to expand its Critical Care Unit (CCU) and the adjacent Step-down Unit adding 20 new beds in total. A step-down unit is where patients receive care when they are not ill enough to be in the CCU, but they are not well enough to be on a traditional medical-surgical unit.
The IHFSRB approved the Certificate of Need permit prior to its full board meeting because the project met all the criteria and there was no opposition. The project includes the renovation of 21,500-square-feet of space on the north side of the Health Center and 37,389 square feet of new construction. Along with the expansion of the CCU and Step-down Unit, the project provides space on the ground floor to enlarge the Lumpkin Education Center to include a Multidisciplinary Training Center to be used by Lake Land College, Eastern Illinois University and the SBL Health Occupations program. Materials Management will benefit from an expanded storage room, as well, since the current inventory room has remained essentially the same size since the Health Center opened in 1977.
The 58,000-square-foot and $30 million project will take about 18 months to complete. Construction can begin in early 2022.
Over the last four years, SBL has experienced an increase in inpatient and observation days from 28,719 to 34,968 annually. The Health Center experiences peak census in CCU and on the Medical/Surgical units often, which means those areas can only accommodate one or two additional patients during peaks.
The expansion project will increase the CCU capacity by 55 percent from nine rooms to 14 private rooms, which will be larger and of contemporary design to accommodate medical equipment, staff and family. Another 15 private rooms, adjacent to CCU, will be used for Step-down Unit patients. The rooms on 2 East will be a designated Observation Unit.
The project calls for all training rooms on the Health Center campus to relocate to the Lumpkin Education Center. SBL Vice President of Operations Kim Uphoff explained, “Our educational partners and employees are excited about the expansion of the Center. Rooms are often unavailable for large trainings and, many times, employees and students move between simulation rooms on the fourth floor to computer training labs in Prairie Pavilion 2. It makes sense to accommodate all of our learning in one area.”
The exterior of the addition will be finished in brick and glass to blend the front of the building and other buildings on campus with the new expansion.
For more information, contact SBL Planning Director Marsha Haldorsen at 217 258-4169.
