The Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board approved Rush Oak Park (Ill.) Hospital's plan to replace its 50-year-old emergency department with a new facility.
The hospital filed a certificate of need with the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board for the project in October.
The current ED — built in 1969 — was designed to serve 15,000 patients annually, although the hospital now sees more than 37,000 patients a year, according to a news release.
Through the $30 million project, Rush Oak Park will construct a one-and-a-half story, 55,000-square-foot facility near the hospital's main building. About 20,000 square feet of the facility would house the emergency department.
Twenty-one individual treatment bays, two isolation rooms, two behavioral health rooms and one sexual abuse evaluation and treatment room would be housed in the building, reports the Chicago Tribune. The building will replace the hospital's five-story medical arts building, which was vacated two years ago.
The hospital expects to start demolition this spring and hopes to complete the project by late 2018 or early 2019. Rush Oak Park's current ED will continue to operate until the new building is completed.