AMITA Health is preparing to open its latest Adventist Cancer Institute and Outpatient Center in Hinsdale, IL. Equipped with the latest in construction, design & technology the new Cancer Institute represents the future of cancer treatment.
Patients walking into the Adventist Cancer Institute and Outpatient Center in Hinsdale, Ill., scheduled to open in early 2016, will find something they don’t expect in a cancer treatment facility: everything.
Cancer patients are used to going from place to place for various elements of their care: Tests are in one location. The lab is in another. Chemotherapy is in yet a different location. Doctors’ offices are in still another, and the pharmacy is somewhere else entirely. The Adventist Cancer Institute not only offers every service except surgery under one roof, but also situates everything on the ground floor. The result is an exceptional patient experience, both comprehensive and welcoming.
The Adventist Cancer Institute and Outpatient Center is a newly constructed facility representing AMITA Health Network’s consolidation of Cancer Treatment Services from Adventist Hinsdale Hospital and from Adventist LaGrange Memorial Hospital, as well as the latter’s Outpatient Imaging Services.
AMITA Health wanted the Institute to represent the future of cancer treatment, and knew that the project would require innovative planning and construction. Architecture firm ESa of Nashville, Tenn., created a thoughtful and person-centered design that, for example, has imaging areas visually separated from treatment areas. This way, undiagnosed patients would not be waiting in the same offices as patients already receiving intensive therapy. Construction, begun April 2014, was handled by renowned Chicago contractor Bulley & Andrews.
Along with implementing design features such as strict division between imaging and treatment facilities, Bulley & Andrews found solutions to the project’s immense structural demands. The Institute houses four massive vaults:
° one for HDR imaging
° one for PET/CT scanning
° two for Linear Acceleration radiation treatment
The walls, floors and ceilings of every vault are made of solid concrete between four and eight feet thick. In addition, the building was designed to allow for future vertical expansion, which required extensive additional reinforcement of the existing load-bearing walls, even above and beyond the reinforcement needed to support the massive vaults.
Bulley & Andrews celebrates its 125th anniversary in 2016, and brings many generations of expertise and experience to every project. One key to the success of the Adventist project was Bulley & Andrews’ extensive background in concrete, masonry and finishing. Its deep expertise in these matters meant more informed oversight of subcontractors, and situations that in other hands would have required off-site advisement, or resources, were instead addressed and resolved on site.