On August 9, Centegra Healthcare will complete the largest new development in Huntley’s history, and Sun City has played a significant role in creating it.
As Centegra makes final preparations to open its $230 million, five-story, 128-bed, full-service hospital at Haligus and Algonquin Roads on that day, Chief Executive Officer Michael S. Eesley expressed praise and appreciation for the support he says Centegra received from Sun City.
The main entrance. (Photos by Chris LaPelusa/Sun Day)
In a pre-opening press briefing on July 19, Eesley said the project is the culmination of nearly eight years of dreaming and planning, with Sun City in the forefront of activities.
“We believe there are strong markets for expanded healthcare in the Huntley area, we see opportunities for expanded obstetrics and pediatrics with a growing number of younger families, and an equally strong market for geriatric services in Sun City’s large subdivision,” Eesley said. “There is also a strong group of primary care physicians and nurses in the area. We conducted focus groups in and near Sun City to build our case for a hospital in the community and got excellent feedback.”
While construction in Huntley proceeded, Centegra has also been negotiating partnership agreements with Northwestern Medicine in Chicago for administration and finance (to be finalized soon, Eesley said), and Lurie Children’s Hospital for pediatric services for young children.
Cafeteria.
The main corridor.
“Lurie Children’s Hospital is one of the top-ranked children’s medical facilities in the nation,” Eesley added.
One of the earliest challenges Centegra faced was securing a certificate of need, he said.
”We had to convince state medical authorities of a need for a new hospital here. We went to the community, and we received more than 16,000 letters of support from local-area residents. A significant number of them came from Sun City residents. That and Sun City’s location in the same village where we proposed our project gave us a big boost,” said Eesley.
Centegra is a 102-year-old organization that launched its first hospital in a physician’s Woodstock home in 1914. The first McHenry Hospital was opened in 1956, Northern Illinois Medical Center (NIMC), the second one, came along in McHenry in 1984. Memorial Medical Center in Woodstock opened in 1995. The region’s first open heart surgery was performed at NIMC in 2006, and Centegra’s first immediate care locations opened in Crystal Lake and Huntley in 2008. Healthbridge Fitness Center, located close to Algonquin Road, offers a full-size basketball court, indoor and outdoor pools, an array of weight machines, sauna, and tennis courts. It also opened in 2008.
Centegra also has had a presence in Sun City’s Prairie Lodge for more than a decade, with wellness and immediate care services offered to the community’s senior residents. More than 900 staff members will work at the new hospital, Eesley said.
Triage.
Beginning on opening day, Huntley Fire Protection District ambulances will begin taking patients to Centegra-Huntley; Centegra’s emergency room is a 5-7-minute ride from all Sun City homes. Both the hospital’s administrators and Ken Caudill, Huntley Fire Chief, confirmed last week that the new Centegra facility is certified to receive and care for patients suffering from a full range of traumas and diseases, including strokes and cardiac emergencies. The hospital will operate as a Level II Trauma Center, as most hospitals in the northwest suburbs do. Yet to be completed is a four-story medical office building and education center behind the hospital that will open in about a year.
“The center,” Eealey said, “will function as a medical school, with a capacity of up to 50 students at a time. It will be affiliated with Roosevelt University. We also are talking with McHenry County College to determine how we can partner with their nursing program, and with area fire departments for emergency services and EMT training,” Eesley said.
Other services available in Huntley will be cardiac catheterization, a back and spine center, a surgical suite offering every kind of surgical procedures except open heart (which will remain in McHenry), a rehab and sports medicine clinic, outpatient medical imaging, and weight-loss surgery.
ER patient room.
ER nurses station.
A helipad immediately outside the emergency services department will provide quick transportation for critical patients needing care elsewhere, Eesley went on.
“The immediate care center that has been open since 2006 will remain in service, although its main entrance will be relocated north, toward Reed Road, instead of south,” Eesley added. “This project is the second new hospital to be established in the state in the last 30 years. In almost all other cases, existing hospitals were relocated or replaced.”
You may have heard a lot of claims about state-of-the-art technology at Cenetegra-Huntley. Here are some details: the hospital building has 7,000 light fixtures, but not one light bulb. Everything is LED, as many of us are doing in our homes. All patient areas are carpeted or covered with a surface called Techno-Flooring, which requires no stripping, waxing, or scrubbing, to help keep patient areas quiet. All patient rooms are private, and most of them contain large supply cabinets that are designed to provide staff with needed resources quickly.
The bottom line – a lot of medicine is coming to Sun City’s next door on August 9.
