DOWNTOWN — The University of Chicago Medical Center will have to make trade-offs to open its new trauma center in early 2018, including covering an expected $20 million operating expense every year, hospital officials said Thursday.
Sharon O’Keefe said Thursday that the plan submitted to the state to convert the Mitchell Hospital building into a dedicated cancer center is partially driven by the needs to offset the high costs expected from the trauma center.
“It’s an integrated proposal that recognizes trauma is an expensive service to offer, as well as emergency medicine,” O’Keefe said.
The university announced in December it planned to open the trauma center on campus rather than at Holy Cross Hospital, and initially expected it could open in 2020.
She said the medical center plans to hire 1,000 additional people to staff the cancer center and trauma center and is hoping to minimize the expected $20 million in yearly costs to run the trauma center by finding specialists who can work in the cancer center and other areas of the medical center.
“Clearly we’re not getting into the trauma business or expanding emergency medicine to make money,” O’Keefe said.
She said the decision to find a balance to expand the services at the university was driven by the medical center being full nearly all of the time while other South Side hospitals were reducing services. Also, the need for cancer care is rising.
“Our staff is very excited about this and that’s driven by the fact that we’re full all the time,” O’Keefe said.
The medical center will clear out all oncology services for cancer patients from the Center for Care and Discovery and move them into Mitchell in 2020 after it gets a nearly $230 million in renovations to create 188 new beds for patients, according to O’Keefe.
The move will free up space in the Center for Care and Discovery for the dedicated operating rooms the new trauma team will need.
Trauma patients are the the most seriously injured, often from car accidents or gun shot wounds, and require immediate medical attention, which is provided by a trained trauma team that is on-call 24-hours-a-day.
O’Keefe said the medical center is currently looking for a trauma care director, who will determine how big the university’s trauma team will need to be.
The trauma team will be based out of a new $40 million emergency room on the first floor of what is currently a parking garage at 5656 S. Maryland Ave.
“A trauma center really creates an image of a structure in people’s minds,” O’Keefe said.
She said the new physical structure the university will need to build for the trauma center is modest since most of resources already exist within the medical center campus.
She said four trauma bays, where trauma patients first arrive at the hospital, will be included in plans for the emergency room, as well as MRI and CAT scan equipment.
“The heart and soul of the trauma center will be the clinicians,” O’Keefe said.
She said the clinicians will move between the new emergency room and operating rooms and dedicated patient beds in the Center for Care and Discovery.
She said the current plans are to raise the money for the trauma and cancer centers through a mix of bonds, donations and money from the operating budget.
She said the medical center’s next major project will be to find more office space close to the hospital and to invest in renovations to the medical center’s laboratories.
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