Rush-Copley Healthcare Center to open in Yorkville

July 17, 2008
By CHRISTINE S. MOYER

YORKVILLE -- Grounds keepers planted the final flowers in gardens outside the new Rush-Copley Healthcare Center Wednesday morning. Inside, people cleaned the vinyl floors that look like wood, and nurses prepared the computers at their stations.

And on Monday, Rush-Copley Medical Center's new outpatient care facility will open in Yorkville at 1100 W. Veterans Parkway (Route 34). The 58,000-square-foot brick building, designed in a prairie style, will offer non-ambulatory care services for non-life-threatening illnesses and injuries. Also available at the center will be diagnostic services, including general radiology, MRI, CT scans, ultrasounds, mammography and bone density scans.

"It was really natural for us to come out here," said Nancy Wilson, vice president of the hospital's ancillary services. Wilson stressed that the healthcare center is just one phase of a multi-phase project. In fact, around 9,000 square feet on the first floor will remain unfinished until, Wilson said, Rush-Copley receives permission from the state to perform outpatient surgery on the site.

Other future projects anticipated for the 45-acre campus include a dialysis center -- possibly breaking ground this summer and opening in about a year -- and also a freestanding emergency center open 24 hours. Wilson said Rush-Copley is preparing to apply to the state for the emergency center, which would work like a hospital emergency room. But for now, the hospital's focus is on its newest expansion project.

When patients enter the $23 million healthcare facility, they will walk into a spacious lobby with a brick fireplace, sitting area and vaulted ceiling. Windows designed to prevent glare line the building's walls, dousing the earth-toned interior with light. The first floor features a conference room for hospital staff and the community. Down the hall is the patients' waiting area, with cushioned chairs and a flat-screen television. Wilson pointed to an empty wall where there will soon be an InstyMed, an electronic machine which will enable patients to fill their prescriptions without going to a pharmacy. She compared the technology to an ATM, and said the Yorkville Healthcare center will be the first facility in the region to use it.

Walking through the waiting area, Wilson passed the nursing station, which is surrounded by 10 private patient rooms, each with their own computers. Physicians' offices fill the second and third floors, including family practice, women's health care, ear nose and throat, and oncology. Wilson said about 75 percent of that space is already leased. Wilson stopped at a wall of windows on the first floor and looked out at a giant dirt mound, which the hospital hopes will soon be replaced by a dialysis center.

"We've only just begun," she said.

Leonel Patino, of Hayden Landscape Contractors, sweeps the entryway of the
new Rush-Copley Healthcare Center on Route 34 in Yorkville Wednesday.