In 2022, U.S. News & World Report ranked Northwestern Memorial as the top hospital in both Chicago and Illinois for the eleventh consecutive year and #9 in the nation.[4][5] In the same report, Northwestern Memorial is nationally ranked in 11 adult specialties including #5 in Neurology & Neurosurgery.[6]
History
Origins
Northwestern Memorial Hospital's roots date back to 1865 when the then Deaconess Hospital of Chicago was established by local reverend William A. Passavant Sr. and Lucy Rider Meyer of the Chicago Training School (later Garrett Theological Seminary), with a capacity of 15 beds. In the first year, the hospital had treated 75 patients, with most receiving care free-of-charge.[7] A few years later in 1871, Deaconess Hospital was destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire, and Passavant could not afford the cost of a rebuild.[7]
In 1885, after 14 years without an area hospital, Passavant opened a new hospital known as "Emergency Hospital" on Superior Street to better treat emergencies from the area.[7]
The original "Deaconess Hospital" before the Great Fire
Wesley Hospital was founded in 1888 on Dearborn Street in Chicago. In 1890, at Northwestern's request, Wesley Hospital agreed to move to the area around Northwestern University's Medical School and establish a preliminary affiliation to train doctors at Northwestern.[8]
In 1897, a group of local women formed the Passavant's Woman's Aid Society to raise money for the continued operation of the hospital. The society was later renamed to the "Woman's Board of Northwestern Memorial Hospital" after the merger between Passavant and Wesley. The society is now one of Chicago's oldest charities.[9][10]
In 1901, both Passavant Memorial Hospital and Wesley Hospital completed building expansion and renovation projects, expanding patient capacity to 65 and 181 beds, respectively.[11]
Passavant Memorial Hospital at 149 West Superior Street in 1922
In 1914, local philanthropist James Deering made a $1million donation to Wesley Memorial Hospital to help formalize the hospital's affiliation with Northwestern University Medical School and to support the care for those that could not afford.[12][11]
In 1917, doctors and nurses from Wesley and Passavant enlisted to help treat victims of World War I with many serving in France with other Northwestern University staff at a base hospital.[11]
In 1924, it was announced that Wesley would move to the north side campus adjacent to Northwestern University for a stronger affiliation, but funding for construction was delayed until the 1930s. Northwestern University also contacted Passavant Memorial Hospital to offer an affiliation and a land plot near the school for a new hospital, which later began operation in 1929.[11]
In 1925, Passavant Memorial Hospital signed an affiliation with Northwestern University, allowing medical students from Northwestern to learn at the hospital. Additionally, Passavant administration decided to suspend patient care in order to begin fundraising for a new, larger hospital. Four years later, in 1929 Passavant Memorial opened their new 325-bed hospital building on 303 East Superior Street across from their affiliate, Northwestern University Medical School.[11]
The Passavant Memorial Hospital located adjacent to Northwestern University Medical School
In 1937, local philanthropist and steel mogul George Herbert Jones donated $1million for construction of a new high-rise building to house Wesley Memorial Hospital. Four years later, in 1941 the new Wesley Memorial Hospital, opened at 250 East Superior Street.[8]
Wesley Memorial Hospital's new hospital was officially completed in 1941, and over the next thirty years, the two institutions began to form bonds because they were both the primary hospitals for Northwestern Medicine.[13] In 1942, doctors and nurses from both Passavant Memorial and Wesley were once again enlisted to help tender aid to soldiers during World War II.[8] In June 1948, hospital founder William A. Passavant Sr. died, triggering a rename to Passavant Memorial Hospital to honor and memorialize Passavant's life.[7]
In 1954, the former Chicago Memorial Hospital finalized a merger with Wesley Hospital which triggered a rename to Chicago Wesley Memorial Hospital; the two hospitals merged their boards, endowment funds and medical staff as a part of the new agreement. Four years later, Passavant Memorial Hospital finished construction on their new east pavilion, bringing the total capacity of the merged hospital to 350 beds.[8] In 1959, Wesley Memorial Hospital completed the Ruth Jones Allison Pavilion, adding space for additional inpatient beds and upgraded lab space.[8]
Due to their proximity and affiliation with Northwestern, the hospitals began working together on a number of clinical services and teaching programs, laying the groundwork for a future merger. The merger plans were accelerated when a new partnership was formed between Northwestern, Wesley Memorial, and Passavant Memorial Hospital. A precursor to a full merger, Passavant and Wesley began looking into collaborative efforts in multi-hospital services and shared inpatient clinical programs.[14]
In 1968, planning and fundraising commenced for a proposed joint women's hospital (Prentice Women's Hospital) that was to be controlled by Northwestern, Wesley Memorial, and Passavant Memorial Hospital.[8]
Wesley Memorial Hospital on Northwestern's campus, pictured in 1941
In 1971, staff from Passavant Memorial and Wesley Memorial gained admitting and hospital privileges at both hospitals;[11] at the time, hospital leadership denied this was a precursor to a merger,[15] but the two hospitals voted to investigate the possibility in May 1972 and had already announced the consolidation of their two nursing schools.[16]
Merger
On September 1, 1972, Passavant Memorial Hospital and Wesley Memorial Hospital officially merged to become Northwestern Memorial Hospital. The 1,000-bed hospital became one of the largest private nonprofit healthcare institutions in the Chicago and the Midwest region;[11] it was the sixth-largest private hospital in the United States with the merger.[17]
In the 1980s, it was realized that the hospital's original inpatient facilities could not keep up with the current technological advances and did not support any future growth. This triggered the planning and designing for a new facility to replace the Passavant Pavilion, Wesley Pavilion, and many of Northwestern's outpatient offices. In 1992, hospital administration announced that they would embark on a $630million replacement hospital project to replace the aging Passavant and Wesley Pavilions.[18] Construction on the new facility began in 1994 on the block bordered by Fairbanks Court, St. Clair, Huron and Erie Streets.[8]
In 1996, surgeons from Northwestern Memorial Hospital became the first in Illinois to perform an islet cell transplantation.[19]
On May 1, 1999, Northwestern Memorial Hospital opened the 17-floor Feinberg Pavilion and 22-floor Galter Pavilion at its current location in Streeterville. The new construction became a model facility for hospital construction attracting healthcare providers to the hospital. The new hospital consisted of 492-all-private-patient-rooms and an emergency department that has the capacity to treat 70,000 patients per year.[20] At the end, the replacement hospital cost a total of $580million and consisted of over 2 million square feet of space.[21][22]
In 2001, demolition on the Passavant Building proceeded as the university had plans to replace the building with a new research facility.[23][24] The new research facility was completed in 2005 and has since been named the "Robert H. Lurie Medical Research Center" to honor the $40million donation from the Ann Lurie Foundation in honor of her late husband.[25][26] Currently, all that remains from the former Passavant Pavilion is pieces of the wall preserved at the Feinberg Pavilion.[27]
In 2005, the Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute was established at Northwestern Memorial after local philanthropist Neil G. Bluhm donated $10million to Northwestern to establish a heart institute.[28][29]
Modern day
In October 2007, after years of construction, the new Prentice Women's Hospital opened at 250 East Superior Street, the same site that held the former Wesley Hospital.[30] This facility would replace the old Prentice Women's Hospital Building which later was demolished in September 2014 for new campus construction.[31][32] The new hospital doubled the size of the previous women's hospital at 947,000 square feet (88,000m2), with one of the largest neonatal intensive care units in the country.[33]
In 2009 the William Wirtz family (former owner of the Chicago Blackhawks) donated $19.5million to Robert H. Lurie Cancer Center at Northwestern Memorial Hospital for cancer research.[34]
Eastern face of the Lavin Family Pavilion of Northwestern Memorial Hospital
The American College of Healthcare Architects recognized Northwestern Memorial for forward-thinking design as it was one of the first hospitals to dedicate private rooms to patients in the main Feinberg and Galter Pavilion buildings.[35] To date, Northwestern Memorial Feinberg and Galter Pavilion buildings make it the third tallest hospital in the United States and the eighth tallest hospital in the world. The neighboring Lurie Children's Hospital, also affiliated with Northwestern, is the sixth tallest hospital facility in the country.[36]
In 2011, demolition began on the building that was occupying 259 E. Erie Street to make way for the construction of the new Northwestern Outpatient Pavilion.[37] The next year, in 2012, Northwestern began construction on the $334million, 1,000,000-square-foot (93,000m2) building. The new building contains the Northwestern Musculoskeletal Institute, outpatient operating rooms, a center for diagnostics, eight floors of doctors offices, and a 575-car garage.[38] The new building officially opened on October 13, 2014.[39] In January 2015, Northwestern Medicine announced that they would convert the 11-floor of the building from doctors offices to additional operating rooms due to higher-than-expected demand of outpatient surgeries.[40] In October 2015, the Northwestern Outpatient Pavilion was renamed to the Lavin Family Pavilion to honor the philanthropic efforts of the Lavin Family Foundation towards Northwestern Medicine.[41]
On October 12, 2015, Northwestern Memorial Hospital named Julie L. Creamer as its first female president.[42] Creamer received her BSN from Marquette University and holds a Master of Science Degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago.[43]
With construction beginning in 2015 and completed in 2019, the Simpson Querrey Biomedical Research Center is a 600,000-square-foot (56,000m2) building on the hospital campus that houses laboratories dedicated to biomedical research.[44][45] Future expansion of the 14-story building will bring total dedicated research square footage to roughly 1.2million. The project was partially funded and eventually named after Louis Simpson and his wife, Kimberly Querrey who made a $92million donation to the center.[46]
In February 2020, it was announced that Northwestern Memorial Hospital would once again expand bed capacity, building a three-story addition between the Galter and Feinberg Pavilions with 49 new beds.[47][48]
Cyber attack
In April 2021, a breach at Elekta Inc., a company who handles cancer patient data for Illinois, involved unauthorized access to patient information from the Northwestern Memorial Healthcare system. Hospital officials claimed that personally identifiable information including social security numbers were involved in the leak.[49]
About
Northwestern Memorial provides a total of 894 inpatient beds and encompasses more than threemillion square feet (280,000m2) of medical buildings within the Northwestern University Chicago campus in the Streeterville neighborhood downtown.[50] Nearly every medical specialty is represented by over 1,900 physicians on the medical staff at Northwestern Memorial who also carry faculty appointments with Feinberg School of Medicine.[51] As of 2018, total hospital-based research funding topped $484million, placing Northwestern in the top 15 for the National Institutes of Health ranking among all American medical schools.[52] The hospital's endowment reached $264million as of 2020.[53]
Northwestern Memorial is a partner with CommunityHealth in Chicago and provides healthcare through medical volunteers who participate in a residency program at the center's two sites in the West Town and Englewood neighborhoods.[54]
Research
In partnership with the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, more than 4,500 clinical trials and studies are conducted each year with over 50,000 patients and volunteers participating.[55]
The Simpson Querrey Biomedical Research Center opened in 2019 and is expected to produce over $1.5billion in new federal medical research funding in the center's first 10 years.[57]
Facilities
Galter
The Galter Pavilion is one of the main buildings making up Northwestern Memorial Hospital and is named after hospital benefactors Jack and Dollie Galter.[58] It is one of the tallest hospital buildings in the United States, and is the twenty-third tallest in the world.[36] The Galter Pavilion is joined to the hospital's Feinberg Pavilion on the first three floors. The buildings were constructed as the centerpiece of Northwestern Memorial Hospital in 1997. Together the buildings house a total of 2,134,920 square feet of space.[59] It currently houses a combination of inpatient and outpatient services.
Feinberg
Construction on the Feinberg Pavilion happened simultaneously as the neighboring Galter Pavilion was being constructed. Feinberg primarily serves as the inpatient component for the hospital.[60] The Feinberg Pavilion is joined to the hospital's Galter Pavilion on the first three floors. The two buildings were constructed as the centerpiece of Northwestern Memorial Hospital in 1997. Additionally, the Feinberg pavilion houses the main imaging department of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center.[61]
Lavin Family
The Lavin Family Pavilion (formerly Northwestern Outpatient Pavilion) is the main outpatient pavilion of Northwestern Memorial Hospital. The building opened in 2014 and contains the Northwestern Musculoskeletal Institute, outpatient operating rooms, a center for diagnostics, eight floors of doctors offices, a 575-car garage, and ground level restaurants.[38][62]
A skybridge between the Feinberg and Olson Pavilions
Olson
In 1979, the Olson Critical Care Pavilion opened adjacent to both the Passavant and Wesley Pavilions.[8]
Prentice Women's Hospital is an acute care women's hospital located adjacent to both Northwestern Memorial and the Lurie Children's Hospital. Prentice Women's Hospital is a member of Northwestern Medicine and serves as a teaching hospital for the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. The hospital provides tertiary-level obstetric, gynecological, and neonatal care to patients from the entire region. The hospital has 256 beds, with 86 AAP verified level III neonatal intensive care unit beds, 32 labor and delivery beds, 86 healthy bassinets, and 10 operating rooms.[63] The hospital is directly attached to the Lurie Children's Hospital via skybridge because Lurie physicians provide care on Prentice's neonatal intensive care units.[64] Additionally, Prentice houses three inpatient units of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center; and select outpatient cancer services.[61]
Awards
Northwestern Memorial Hospital is frequently ranked as a top hospital in both Chicago and Illinois as well as in the top 10 of hospitals in the nation.[65][66][67]
The hospital ranked nationally in 11 adult specialties and as #1 in Illinois on the 2020-21 U.S. News & World Report: Best Hospitals rankings. In addition, the hospital was ranked as the tenth-best hospital in the country.[69]
2020-21 U.S. News & World Report Rankings for Northwestern Memorial Hospital[70]
Streeterville is a neighborhood in the Near North Side community area of Chicago, Illinois, United States, north of the Chicago River. It is bounded by the river on the south, the Magnificent Mile portion of Michigan Avenue on the west, and Lake Michigan on the north and east, according to most sources, although the city of Chicago recognizes only a small portion of this region as Streeterville. Thus, it can be described as the Magnificent Mile plus all land east of it. The tourist attraction of Navy Pier and Ohio Street Beach extend out into the lake from southern Streeterville. To the north, the East Lake Shore Drive District, where the Drive curves around the shoreline, may be considered an extension of the Gold Coast. The majority of the land in this neighborhood is reclaimed sandbar.
Rush University Medical Center (Rush) is an academic medical center in the Illinois Medical District neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship hospital for the Rush University System for Health, which includes Rush Oak Park Hospital and Rush Copley Medical Center, and serves as the primary teaching hospital in affiliation with Rush University.
UC San Diego Health is the academic health system of the University of California, San Diego in San Diego, California. It is the only academic health system serving San Diego and has one of three adult Level I trauma centers in the region. In operation since 1966, it comprises three major hospitals: UC San Diego Medical Center in Hillcrest, Jacobs Medical Center in La Jolla, and UC San Diego Health East Campus Medical Center in East County. The La Jolla campus also includes the Moores Cancer Center, Shiley Eye Institute, Sulpizio Cardiovascular Center, and Koman Family Outpatient Pavilion, and the health system also includes several outpatient sites located throughout San Diego County. UC San Diego Health works closely with the university's School of Medicine and Skaggs School of Pharmacy to provide training to medical and pharmacy students and advanced clinical care to patients.
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Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, formerly Children's Memorial Hospital and commonly known as Lurie Children's, is a nationally ranked pediatric acute care children's hospital located in Chicago, Illinois. The hospital has 360 beds and is affiliated with the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. The hospital provides comprehensive pediatric specialties and subspecialties to infants, children, teens, and young adults aged 0–21 throughout Illinois and surrounding regions. Lurie Children's also sometimes treats adults that require pediatric care. Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago also features a state designated Level 1 Pediatric Trauma Center, one of four in the state. The hospital has affiliations with the nearby Northwestern Memorial Hospital and the attached Prentice Women's Hospital. Lurie is located on the university's Streeterville campus with more than 1,665 physicians on its medical staff and 4,000 employees. Additionally, Lurie Children's has a rooftop helipad to transport critically-ill pediatric patients to the hospital.
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Prentice Women's Hospital is an acute care women's hospital located adjacent to both Northwestern Memorial and the Lurie Children's Hospital, in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Prentice Women's Hospital is a member of Northwestern Medicine and serves as a teaching hospital for the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. The hospital provides tertiary-level obstetric, gynecological, and neonatal care to patients from the entire region. The hospital has 256 beds, with 86 AAP verified level III neonatal intensive care unit beds, 32 labor and delivery beds, 86 healthy bassinets, and 10 operating rooms. The hospital is directly attached to the Lurie Children's Hospital via skybridge because Lurie physicians provide care on Prentice's neonatal intensive care units.
The Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Centerof Northwestern University is a National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center located on Northwestern Memorial Hospital's downtown medical campus in the Streeterville neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, United States. One of two NCI-designated cancer centers in Illinois, Lurie Cancer Center's physicians and scientists hold faculty appointments within the Feinberg School of Medicine, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and other academic units across Northwestern University. Together, they bring their combined knowledge and expertise to patients at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Ann & Robert H. Children's Hospital of Chicago, Shirley Ryan AbilityLab and the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center. Additionally, Lurie Cancer Center is a founding member of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network and a member of the Big Ten Cancer Research Consortium.
Beatrice Edna Tucker was an American obstetrician and gynecologist. Tucker was the medical director of the Chicago Maternity Center for over forty years, providing access to home births for poor people in Chicago. She also worked as an advocate for equitable access to reproductive healthcare, lobbying for legalized abortion and access to birth control.
Sandi Lam is a Canadian pediatric neurosurgeon and is known for her research in minimally invasive endoscopic hemispherectomy for patients with epilepsy. Lam is the Vice Chair for Pediatric Neurological Surgery at Northwestern University and the Division Chief of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Lurie Children's Hospital. She has spent her career advancing pediatric brain surgery capabilities globally through her work in Kenya performing surgeries as well as training and mentoring local residents and fellows.
↑ Webmaster. "Mission and History". The Woman's Board of Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Archived from the original on February 10, 2021. Retrieved February 10, 2021.
↑ Writer, Patrice M. Jones, Tribune Staff. "NU PLANS MEDICAL RESEARCH COLOSSUS". chicagotribune.com. Archived from the original on February 10, 2021. Retrieved February 10, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
↑ "Galter Pavilion on EMPORIS". Emporis. June 5, 2012. Archived from the original on February 10, 2021. Retrieved February 10, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
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