MUNSTER – Community Hospital has begun a $33 million expansion of its Munster campus. Construction of a new four-story addition to the Emergency Department Pavilion will take 24 months during which time all hospital services will remain open.
The project is designed to add private rooms, double the capacity of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), expand the main Surgical Services area and increase capacity for stroke and heart patients.
“Community Hospital is the busiest hospital in Lake County and this latest expansion will help us to respond to the growth and demand for our services,” said CEO Donald P. Fesko.
Last fall, Community Hospital and University of Chicago Medicine Comer Children’s Hospital entered into a partnership where critically-ill babies in Community Hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) are cared for by board certified University of Chicago Medicine neonatologists. This relationship ensures continuity in best practices, advanced technologies and techniques used in neonatal intensive care.
To accommodate growth in family services and specialty neonatology care, the top three floors in the Emergency Department (ED) Pavilion addition will encompass the Family Birthing Center, doubling the size of the NICU. In the second phase, with the relocation of the existing Family Birthing Center to the new ED Pavilion addition, Surgical Services on the main floor will be expanded.
The third floor of the new ED Pavilion addition will house 32 private telemetry (Intermediate Care Unit) rooms, those that feature heart monitoring and other specialized equipment. These beds will be relocated from the Intermediate Care Unit currently located on second floor of the hospital.
Neuroscience Intensive Care and Neuroscience Intermediate Care will expand to the vacated Intermediate Care Unit to allow for the increased number of patients requiring neurosurgery, spine and stroke care.
The existing Cardiovascular Unit will relocate to the area of the vacated Labor & Delivery space on the first floor expanding the capacity and allowing for private patient rooms for heart and vascular patients.
