Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago saw a 15 percent increase in its operating revenue during the first fiscal year after its high-profile relocation, according to a Crain's Chicago Business report.
Formerly Children's Memorial Hospital, the organization took its new name, location and 288-bed facility in June 2012. It moved from Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood to a $915 million facility that is nearly twice as large in Chicago's Streeterville neighborhood. That spot puts the hospital just down the street from its academic partner, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
The new location and larger facility serves as a recruitment tool for physicians who want to work on an academic campus and collaborate on research, according to the report. A hospital executive said the move contributed to Lurie Children's recruiting nearly 90 physicians.
During its first fiscal year in the new location, Lurie Children's operating revenue grew to $759.5 million and its admissions increased by 6 percent to more than 11,500, according to the report.
The hospital is not expected to sustain such a robust increase in admissions, however, due to a declining birth rate, more emphasis on preventive care and accountable care incentives. These factors make the hospital's dozen affiliations with community hospitals all the more critical, according to the report. Those various affiliations involve outpatient clinics and Lurie specialists staffing the affiliates' pediatric ERs and performing surgeries.
In the report, Madeline McDowell, MD, clinical advisor with Skokie, Ill.-based Sg2, said the hospital's strategy with affiliation agreements "is really what's going to strengthen their referrals and pull them through the next decade."
The hospital already has some sturdy footing. Lurie Children's has the largest pediatric market share in the Chicago area. It has 24 percent, followed by Downers Grove, Ill.-based Advocate Health Care, which has nearly 17 percent, according to a Feb. 7 report from Standard & Poor's Ratings Services cited in the report.
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