By HFT Staff

Together with faith and community leaders, elected officials, physicians and nurses, Advocate Health Care announced that it will invest $1 billion to expand access to primary care, specialty care and wellness services on the South Side of Chicago. The plan calls for more locations across the South Side, more preventative programs and services, a new, state-of-the-art community hospital and more. This is one of the largest, long-term community-focused health care investments in the nation aimed at closing the 30-year life expectancy gap between individuals who reside on the South Side, and those residing and living longer on the North Side. 

The expansive investment in a wellness model is the direct result of an extensive community input process over much of 2024, which included more than 20 listening sessions and engaged hundreds of South Side residents. During these sessions, participants shared ideas and suggestions for improving access to outpatient and specialty care, using technology to improve care, providing robust health education and support for chronic conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure, and building a state-of-the-art hospital to modernize inpatient care. 

This new model, which was co-developed by the community, will help address the health inequities faced by so many on the South Side, including the fact that 84 percent of hospitalized South Side residents have one or more chronic conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, congestive heart failure, mental health needs, substance use issues and renal failure. 

Highlights of the $1B investment include: 

• Over $500 million is devoted to expanding outpatient care, embedded in the community. 
• Adding 85,000 new appointments annually. 
• Establishing Advocate Health Care Neighborhood Care locations – 10 new locations to serve the whole family; the first one opening in the coming months at the South Side YMCA and another two by next year. These conveniently located care sites will virtually connect patients to Advocate providers in familiar places – churches, community centers and more – to handle everyday health services like treating the flu, common cold, asthma, sore throat, yearly physicals, lab testing, chronic disease management, contraception and medication refills. The onsite medical staff will connect patients to primary care providers and needed social services like food, housing and transportation to medical appointments. 
• Expand the Imani Village outpatient clinic to add immediate care with more doctors, more services, more appointments and shorter waiting times. 
• Add a mobile medicine vehicle that will provide primary care access at sites across the community – taking medical care directly to where it is needed. 

More than $200 million will be invested in hospital and outpatient programs and services, expanding management of chronic disease and addressing social factors that affect health, like access to healthy food, housing, transportation and prescriptions. This includes: 

• Expanding access to pharmacy services with free prescription programs for patients in need and medication home delivery for patients with 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. 
• Growing Advocate’s Food Farmacy program that distributes fresh produce and healthy staples to patients with metabolic conditions such as heart disease and diabetes by doctors’ orders. 
• To address black maternal and fetal health, Advocate will greatly expand access to pre- and post-natal care by adding 5,000 annual OB-GYN visits plus a robust new set of programs and wrap-around services that address the entire pregnancy journey, including patient navigation, education, medication, connection to midwives and social workers. 

Spending $300 million to build a new state-of-the-art hospital at the former U.S. Steel South Works site near the lakefront that will replace the current Advocate Trinity Hospital building, which is more than 115 years old. 

Advocate has an agreement to purchase 23 acres of land where it plans to build a 52-bed hospital 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. This will enable Advocate to expand services and beds if community need warrants, but currently there is an excess of hospital beds on the South Side. Data from the Illinois Department of Public Health show that less than 50 percent of hospital beds on the South Side are being used, on average.