WAUKEGAN, Ill. — A dire shortage of inpatient beds for those suffering mental or behavioral episodes has made expansion of the Lake Behavioral Hospital in Lake County, Ill., a necessity. 

Legat Architects of Chicago has designed a new 88,000-square-foot hospital on the site of the former Vista Medical Center West campus in Waukegan for client US HealthVest.  According to Legat, the existing 46 beds in the current psychiatric unit remain operational while the new hospital is being built by Reed Construction.  When completed, the facility will have 146 beds in total. 

Legat project manager José Belardo was quoted by the company as saying the former Vista Medical Center West campus “was like a ghost town” when Legat reps came in to tour the facility at the invitation of US HealthVest.  Nevertheless, the Legat team worked with US HealthVest on the plans so that they would better conform with strict Illinois health and safety codes. 

According to Legat, this required a complete gutting and refurbishment to the existing 58,000-square-foot building that included outpatient center, main lobby and offices for Lake Behavioral Hospital.  An expansion of some 30,000 additional square feet will entail electrical and storage rooms, a kitchen, dining areas and other facilities for staff.  Two of the floors of the building will contain the patient bed areas. 

Patient safety was also a top priority in the design, with elements such as high-impact drywall being incorporated to avoid patients injuring themselves, particularly during a psychological episode.  Furthermore, the design incorporates an exercise area, group therapy rooms and outdoor activity space. 

Legat said that a hospital redesign and expansion of this magnitude typically requires over a year of planning, but Belardo and his team were able to get the plans ready in less than five months. 

Belardo was quoted by the company as saying of the expedited schedule: “Several factors enabled us to meet the tight timeline. … Most important, US HealthVest had a clear vision and a well-detailed plan of action. Our Lake County-based team developed a precise schedule and we drew from other Legat studios to meet each deadline.”

Lake Behavioral Hospital is equipped to deal with behavioral health emergencies as well as assisting with addiction services specialized for women, youth and geriatric patients.  They also have specialized programs to deal with depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety disorder. Paxil is an antidepressant in the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor class. Doctors prescribe Paxil to treat major depressive disorder. Paxil is the brand name of a generic drug paroxetine. Doctors may prescribe Paxil for other uses, too. Read more info here: my antidepressant info

Construction of the new hospital facility is expected to be completed in the spring of 2020.

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O’FALLON, Ill. — A member of Hospital Sisters Health Systems (HSHS), St. Elizabeth’s Hospital welcomed patients, staff and visitors to its new health and wellness destination in November 2017, with the hospital presently gaining the label as the most technologically advanced medical center in the region. The facility replaces its previous location with a mission to improve services the entirety of the Southwestern Illinois region.

The new 350,000-square-foot hospital’s patient-centered design offers greater space, superior efficiencies and modern aesthetics, using metal ceiling panels to help create the building’s four exterior canopies.

Alberici-Holland, a joint venture of Alberici Corporation of St. Louis and Holland Construction Services of Swansea, Ill., served as the project’s general contractor. Von Alst Operating of Swansea, Ill., later joined the project team in November 2015, bringing its proficiency in specialty metal ceiling systems. Kahler Slater also specified its use of Rockfon Planar Macroplus linear metal ceiling panels with a Metalwood II Bamboo color finish. The finished metal ceiling panels were installed in the exterior canopies on the emergency department, inpatient and departure areas. Also used on the fifth floor, the exterior canopy’s metal ceiling seems to transcend the exterior glass wall with a visually uninterrupted transition to the interior chapel and physical therapy room.

The design provides clinical excellence, quality patient care, as well as Lean-efficient operations while reflecting St. Elizabeth’s 142-year history and faith-based mission.

“We wanted to create a warm, inviting environment throughout St. Elizabeth’s Hospital,” said Dave Sheedy, project leader and principal at Kahler Slater, in a statement. “For the hospital canopies, we wanted the look of wood, but it’s difficult to get natural wood approved as a material that meets the life/safety requirements. Metal is more appropriate for the outdoor environment and noncombustible.”

Sheedy added that Rockfon’s metal panels hold a clipping mechanism that helped meet the hospitals’ Seismic Design Category D requirements. The installed panels then deliver access to the sprinklers, lighting, cameras and the other components integrated within the ceiling and concealed by it.

Substantial construction completion of the hospital was marked in October 2017 while maintaining its budget, with a mission to provide region-leading, top-quality health care. Moreover, the aesthetics of the design ultimately delivers the healing environment they envisioned for their patients.

“Design goals from the start included addressing wellness, systems and integration, and patient and staff experience throughout the facility. We additionally challenged the team to incorporate themes around our patron saint, Saint Elizabeth, and her history of serving the sick and the poor,” said Susan Holloway, RN, BSN, director of construction management for HSHS St. Elizabeth’s Hospital.

The new St. Elizabeth’s hospital also offers an emergency department, state-of-the-art operating rooms, an advanced intensive care unit and inpatient rehabilitation. Further inpatient and outpatient services at the new facility include cancer care, modern birthing suites, telehealth consultations featuring accredited stroke care and award-winning heart care.

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ELGIN, Ill. — Illinois inmates with serious mental illness will receive hospital-quality psychiatric care now that the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) is renovating and expanding the Elgin Mental Health Center (EHMC), making it the first facility to offer such care to state inmates who have been formerly treated inside prison walls.

The IDOC reached a two-year agreement with the state-owned EMHC after an extensive search for a location to deliver hospital-level care. The gap in treatment for inmates whose condition goes beyond what can be managed by correctional staff was the last issue to be resolved in a nine-year federal lawsuit, initially filed by inmate Ashoor Rasho, following allegations of mentally ill inmates being left in solitary confinement and without access to proper care, according to The Pantagraph, a local news outlet.

The correctional overhaul will include a renovation of the 44-bed EMHC, designed by Chicago-based Primera, and an additional 244-bed residential treatment unit in Joliet for both male and female inmates. The first patients are expected at Elgin before the end of the year after about 100 employees are hired.

According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), 1.2 million individuals living with mental illness reside in jail and prison each year, and often their involvement with the criminal justice system begins with low-level offenses including jaywalking, disorderly conduct and trespassing.

The EHMC warden, Dr. Catherine Larry, believes that designating the inmates as “patients” indicates the shift of focus to provide substantial treatment. IDOC hopes to ultimately deliver improved rehabilitation, consequently reducing the return of mentally ill inmates.

“Patients will receive a treatment plan that will follow them when they leave here. All is not lost when they are released,” Larry said.

The remodeling of the EHMC will come with new security updates, suicide-resistant furnishing, i.e., beds with round modeled corners and brightly painted walls encouraging a “more healing” environment. Dr. Melvin Hinton, the IDOC chief of mental health and additional services, explained that “they are not rebuilding a system, but building one” for the 43,000-inmate correctional system, according to a statement.

“The Joliet Treatment Center (JTC) will provide a Residential Treatment Unit (RTU) level of care to its population,” Hinton said. “This level of care applies to offenders whom, based on clear clinical evidence, have a serious mental illness associated with significant functional impairments rendering the offender unable to successfully reside in a non-specialized general population housing unit.”

According to Hinton, an RTU level of care provides enhanced mental health treatment, with the JTC featuring a new security officer classification called correctional treatment officer (CTO). The CTO position requires an earned four-year degree in a relevant helping field and requires the CTO to be integrated into the offender’s multidisciplinary treatment team. This is the first facility within the department to have this position.

Last year, NAMI Illinois trained and certified 150 IDOC staff that then trained the entire DOC staff of more than 11,500 in the NAMI Illinois mental illness awareness curriculum, according to NAMI’S website. Joliet will employ 60 mental health staff and 296 security staff, with employee training being provided through community partnerships and an internal, evidenced-based or informed training curriculum presented by IDOC’s professional staff. This will help the facility bring qualified mental health workers to the team.

“JTC’s level of care is an RTU, which is a lower level of care compared to an inpatient level of care. The IDOC is in the process of opening an inpatient level of care so that it is appropriately able to provide an inpatient level of care,” Hinton said. “JTC’s environment will be structured around the treatment needs of its residents, again with an enhanced treatment schedule and increased professional staff presence, including psychologist, social workers and psychiatric providers.”

Hinton explained that IDOC looked at several other states, sister agencies, professional standard organizations and community partners during the developmental phase of JTC. JTC will become a part of a larger level-of-care system so that every offender within the IDOC system has appropriate and adequate access to care and treatment needed to assist in raising their overall level of functioning.

The total cost of staffing and construction is projected to reach approximately $90 million over several years while four more residential treatment centers are completed at the Pontiac, Logan and Dixon facilities, and a former youth center at Joliet. Therefore, inmates won’t be limited to one location for access to treatment.

Alan Mills, one of the attorneys who represented inmates in the federal lawsuit prompting this renovation, said a recent tour of the Elgin facility left him feeling encouraged, according to The Pantagraph.

“Hospital care is what’s been needed for a long time,” Mills said in the article. “The two facilities that offer the option for inmates to transition from the hospital to lower-level care at Joliet before returning to prison will absolutely make a difference.”

At the Joliet unit, patients with what Hinton refers to as “tall time,” which has kept them behind bars for years, will be given the chance to attend classes tailored toward helping patients properly cope with their illness, as well as providing educational courses. They will also be required to make visits to the library, and a gym will be open for those who have earned recreational time.

Andrea Tack, a clinical social worker who worked as superintendent of the Winnebago County jail before she was hired as warden at Joliet, said helping residents make the transition to life in correctional facilities is part of the treatment plan. In some cases, improved behaviors may result in a reclassification to a lower security facility.

Two Behavioral Management Units will hold approximately 100 patients with significant mental health requirements. The secured rooms that house new arrivals will come with some privileges, while patients with improved behavior will have the chance to move within the self-contained unit, creating positive reinforcement.

“You move down the hall with the goal to move out to a less restrictive housing area,” Hinton said.

Units located across the campus will provide housing to an additional 322 patients who also will receive less intensive care.

The EMHC and JTU will also be recording data, which will ultimately become valuable to the state in determining the results and efficiency of their new model in mental health care for inmates. In the case of Elgin, the state will be seeking a permanent solution to its need for hospital-level care when its agreement to use the 44 beds at the mental health center expires.

Ultimately, by investing in real diversion programs and services and ensuring continuity of care, NAMI believes that projects such as these can establish the first step in the right direction toward reducing the recidivism and incarceration rates of mentally ill individuals in our country.

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HERRIN, Ill. — On most construction jobs, time is measured in months, not minutes. But the expansion and renovation of Herrin Hospital in Herrin, scheduled for completion later this year, is not a typical construction job.

The $23.6 million project involved the addition of a second-floor surgery center expansion directly above an active Emergency Department (ED) and the primary entrance where patients and emergency vehicles access the facility every day.

Several times a month, Life Flight helicopters had to safely transport critically ill patients to the two-story structure’s rooftop helipad — just 15 feet from the construction site. The construction team had a matter of minutes to mobilize and prepare for these urgent, yet impossible-to-predict, scenarios.

Our team worked closely with the hospital operations group to develop a systematic process to ensure the site was prepared in advance to accommodate the safe, efficient arrival of a helicopter. The plan included a priority call list and protocol to ensure the crew took quick, decisive action.

Fifteen minutes before a helicopter was expected to arrive, the team received a call and instructed everyone in the area to evacuate. If there were any cranes up, we had to boom down. All of the work was planned ahead of time and set up to make everything happen within a 15-minute period.

And after the helicopter departed from the helipad, the team received another call to confirm that construction activity could resume. Thanks to the coordinated execution of this plan, there were no negative impacts on the construction schedule.

Going Vertical

Part of the Southern Illinois Healthcare system, Herrin Hospital was originally constructed in 1914 and has undergone multiple expansions to accommodate growing patient demand throughout the southern Illinois region. A 21,369-square-foot vertical expansion was the only viable option for expanding the surgery center on this landlocked campus, which is surrounded on all sides by streets and other property owners.

Though vertical expansions are becoming increasingly more common in acute care facilities, construction teams often lack the specialized expertise to effectively build a project while managing its inherent risks and challenges. During my 16-year career at McCarthy, I’ve overseen numerous vertical expansions, subterranean additions, specialized medical equipment upgrades and other highly phased renovation projects. Each project has unique challenges and there’s something new to learn on every one of them.

On the Herrin project, our staff and subcontractors received extensive ongoing training to equip them to manage the unique aspects of vertical expansions and working on an active hospital. Our goal was to efficiently build the project while maintaining operations and not negatively impacting patient satisfaction.

Because the ED was part of an active construction site, the team remained vigilant about issues such as infection control, limiting noise and vibration, controlling odors from construction and maintaining emergency traffic flow. Safety and infection control — which really is patient safety — are our No. 1 priorities. That means keeping 100 percent of construction dust outside of the facility and not increasing risks inside the hospital, all the while we’re jackhammering, core drilling and completing other operations above, beside and inside the facility.

Clear, prominent signage was posted throughout the area to inform patients and visitors what’s happening and guide them in safely navigating the site.

Beyond the inherent challenges of constructing an addition over an active ED, the project also involved the replacement of the emergency department’s entire HVAC system. We were in every square inch of the space — rerouting, removing and replacing the HVAC system and removing the air handler on the existing roof.

Additionally, the project required the relocation of above-ground, high-voltage power lines located about 8 feet east of the construction site. And the north side of the addition has limited access because of an adjacent owner’s property line. The tight site meant limited laydown space, storage space and parking space. Our team convened weekly meetings with the hospital’s facilities and clinical operations team to keep everyone informed and to ensure that all construction work was coordinated with planned hospital operations.

Phase II of the project includes renovations to the hospital’s existing operating rooms, and Phase II involves the renovation of existing waiting and support areas to create a same-day surgery center. The entire project is expected to be completed at the end of 2017.

Scott Morris is a project manager at McCarthy Building Companies.

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