UDF provided financing to the University of Chicago Medical Center for the completion of multiple projects.

First, UDFs funds were utilized to relocate 122 medical beds and 32 ICU beds from the existing Mitchell Hospital to the 3rd and fourth floors of the recently opened University of Chicago Medical Center for Care and Discovery (CCD). The CCDs third floor provides care for patients in UChicago Medicine multi-specialty surgical units and the Burn and Complex Wound Center. The fourth floor accommodates patients of the Heart and Vascular Center. Each floor has 98 patient beds for intensive care, medical-surgical patients, and those needing 24-hour observation and isolation cases.

UDF funding was used to construct new inpatient units and add 12 ICU beds on both of these floors in the 1.1 million sq. ft. building that was deliberately left vacant during the CCDs initial construction to give the medical center more flexibility to meet the anticipated growing demand for medical care.

When it first opened in 2013, the CCD was the single largest expansion in UChicago Medicine history. The second phase of this project utilized UDF funding to transfer the outdated Labor and Delivery department from Mitchell Hospital to the more modern Comer Center for Children, which is adjacent to the old site. Its location inside of Comer Children’s means newborns have immediate access to specially trained neonatologists in the new 47-bed intensive care nursery and the pediatric operating rooms, which are critical advantages for babies born there. This new section features 9 private delivery suites designed specifically for giving birth in a nurturing and supportive environment with family present, labor and delivery rooms, 2 cesarean section rooms, 5 triage rooms, and 5 antenatal and postnatal rooms. After birth, new mothers recover in private suites in the new Family Birth Center’s Mother and Baby Unit. The unit provides a state-of-the-art setting for mothers to heal while bonding with and nurturing their newborns.

The 25,000-sq. ft. Family Birth Center located inside Comer Children’s Hospital, opened in September 2016 and brings an extremely customizable birth experience to women on the South Side and south suburbs.

Finally, UDFs investment was used to construct a new Level 1 adult trauma center on Chicago’s south side. When completed, the trauma center has 41 treatment stations, 12 urgent care stations, 4 resuscitation bays, and both biohazard containment and treatment facilities. This facility will meet a growth in this community, where ER visits have been up 5.5% annually over the previous five years.

The ground was broken in the Fall of 2016 and marked the first major step in implementing UChicago Medicine’s $269 million Get CARE plan–which dramatically increased access to emergency, trauma and specialty care on Chicago’s South Side and includes a dedicated cancer hospital. The new emergency department opened in January 2018, and the adult trauma program several months later.