The third largest non-profit hospital system in the nation, Advocate Health, said it plans to spend $1bn in Chicago’s South Side, and replace an aging hospital with a smaller facility and more primary care appointments.
Chicago has one of the largest life expectancy gaps in the nation. Racial segregation is thought to be at the heart of a roughly 30-year life expectancy gap between the North and South Side areas.
The South Side is about 75% Black, according to city statistics, owing to decades of discriminatory federal housing policies. The North Side is 67% white.
“There isn’t currently great access to immediate care or urgent care,” said Michelle Blakely, president and CEO of Advocate South Suburban and Advocate Trinity Hospital, who said the goal is for the system to move care into the community with “a very ambulatory-forward focus on healthcare”.
Advocate Health operates 69 hospitals across six states – Illinois, Wisconsin, Alabama, the Carolinas and Georgia. The system, which is still operated in part by a local government board in Mecklenburg county, North Carolina, has been under intense scrutiny since 2023, when a state treasurer’s report found it to be the most litigious hospital in North Carolina.
Advocate, and its south-eastern branch Atrium, used debt lawsuits to place liens on patients’ homes. In September, the system extinguished 11,500 liens – far more than the hospital was previously known to hold. Advocate said it reformed its debt collection practices beginning in 2022, and now pre-qualifies patients who earn less than 300% of the federal poverty level for financial aid, and is committed to health equity.
Advocate said it would spend $300m to replace Trinity, a 115-year-old hospital with 263 beds, with a smaller 52-bed facility surrounded by greenery. The system then plans to demolish the old hospital and build a park. The organization said in a press release that the neighborhood’s hospital beds are only half occupied, and its goal is to push more healthcare providers into community settings, such as libraries and churches.
Another $500m will be devoted to expanding outpatient health settings, including providing more virtual appointments for patients at community sites, such as the YMCA, where patients could get treatment for common ailments and appointments, such as colds, chronic disease management or medication refills. The system will also start a primary care mobile van program and expand an existing clinic.
Finally, $200m will be spent expanding medication access with drug kiosks; bringing more OBGYN appointments online and expanding a partnership with local food banks, which the hospital has dubbed the “Food Farmacy”.
“Advocate is amazingly committed to health equity, and part of this investment – $1bn – is having heard from the community, having made a commitment toward health equity, recognizing there are lots of systems that walk away from communities like ours, where there are inadequate resources to cover all the needs,” said Blakely.
• This article was amended 19 December 2024 to clarify that Advocate Health made the decision to extinguish 11,500 liens in September, and that debt collection practices were amended across the company, not just at Atrium.
