By C. H. Barton
Special to Inside
The VA Chicago Health Care System successfully moved the last nine patients from its Lakeside campus to its West Side campus on Aug. 7, completing the consolidation of inpatient services that was announced last year by the Department of Veterans Affairs. VA Chicago had stopped inpatient admissions to its 76-bed Lakeside facility the previous week and began admitting all its patients to West Side to reduce the number of veterans needing to be transferred.
The move began at 9:30 a.m. when the first patient left Lakeside by ambulance. It ended at 1 p.m. when the last Lakeside inpatient was relocated to a medical unit at West Side, where faculty and residents from the University of Illinois and Northwestern University are working side-by-side to treat veterans.
VA officials emphasized that outpatient services will continue for the near term at the Lakeside facility, located at 333 E. Huron St. The vast majority of Lakeside's patients are treated on an outpatient basis.
Urgent care will also continue for the near term at Lakeside from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays. Emergency services on a 24-hour basis will continue to be available at VA Chicago's West Side campus, located at 820 S. Damen Ave.
Two new inpatient units were opened at the West Side campus to accommodate the additional patients, giving VA Chicago a total of 209 inpatient beds. Other construction projects related to the transition have also been completed at West Side, including opening two new operating rooms, expanding Nuclear Medicine, remodeling Respiratory Care and developing new facilities for its Women's Health Center.
VA Chicago's transition plan also calls for construction at West Side of a 200-bed tower with operating rooms, which is presently being designed. Renovations of the facility's Emergency Room, Radiology, Laboratory and Nutrition & Food Service areas are anticipated to begin next year.
Other improvements at the West side campus that will enhance care for veterans include construction of a 1500-space parking garage, scheduled to open later this year, and a Regional Veterans Benefits Administration building, scheduled to open in early 2004. For the first time since 1976, Chicago-area veterans will have access to VA health care and benefits assistance at the same location.
Over 300 Lakeside employees are also relocating to West Side as part of the transition. VA Chicago's two affiliates —the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine and the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine—will work together to provide patient care under a dual affiliation program.
The transition of services at VA Chicago is part of the Department of Veterans Affairs' nationwide CARES plan, which is short for Capital Asset Realignment for Enhanced Services. CARES was developed to identify the infrastructure VA will need to care for veterans in the 21st century, redirecting resources from unneeded buildings to use for direct patient care. VA Chicago is one of the first VA facilities in the nation to go through the CARES process.
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