A new chapter has begun for Northwestern Medicine, Catherine Gratz Griffin Lake Forest Hospital, following the completion of a nearly 300,000-square-foot expansion designed to meet growing patient demand.
About eight years after opening its current facility on Westmoreland Road, the hospital last month unveiled two new pavilions that add 96 medical-surgical beds and 18 observation beds, allowing most patients to have private rooms.
“The biggest change patients will notice is a greater level of privacy and compassion and a better experience overall,” Lake Forest Hospital President Seamus Collins said in an interview.
Collins said the expansion was driven by rising patient volumes that quickly followed the hospital’s 2018 move into its new building.
“When we moved into the new facility, there was a significant response from the community,” Collins said, noting increases in emergency room visits and admissions. “Our occupancy rate was pretty high pretty quickly after we moved in.”
He said hospital leaders soon began evaluating ways to meet growing demand and continue advancing the hospital’s capabilities.
A hospital spokeswoman said the expansion project, which took nearly three years to complete, cost an estimated $389 million. That follows the nearly $400 million construction of the new hospital that opened in 2018.
Collins said the need for additional space was not the result of poor planning. He noted Northwestern received state approval at the time for the same number of beds as the previous building, during a period when patient demand was declining.
“Once we opened up this new building, volumes began to take off,” he said.
The expansion also includes an enhanced emergency department designed to treat more patients in traditional clinical settings. Collins acknowledged that limited space previously forced staff to treat some patients in “non-traditional” areas.
“It just didn’t live up to the experience we hold ourselves to and what we thought our Lake County community expects,” he said.
Another major component of the project is the addition of advanced cardiac services. Once the new unit opens later this year, the hospital will be able to perform procedures such as open heart surgery, bypasses and valve replacements locally as opposed them to other Northwestern Medicine faciliites, including Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. The state recently approved the hospital’s request to offer the expanded services.
“Advancing cardiac care at Northwestern Medicine Catherine Gratz Griffin Lake Forest Hospital is not just about expanding services — it’s about elevating the standard of heart care for every patient who walks through our doors,” Dr. Ian Cohen said in a statement. “By integrating cutting-edge technologies with a highly coordinated, patient-centered approach, we are ensuring that our community has access to the most advanced cardiovascular treatments available closer to home.”
Collins said the hospital has hired more than 150 employees to support the expansion and will add additional staff for the cardiovascular unit.
He added he does not anticipate increased patient costs or changes in insurance reimbursement rates as a result of the expansion.
For now, Collins said no additional expansions are planned.
“We are bringing the clinical expertise of Northwestern Medicine to our community,” he said. “We are offering services that people previously had to travel to downtown Chicago to receive, and we are providing them here.”
The hospital was rebranded last year following a major donation from Citadel CEO Ken Griffin in honor of his mother.
Daniel I. Dorfman is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
