Urgent care center opens at Ogden Commons in North Lawndale

A new urgent care clinic has opened in North Lawndale, offering residents with immediate but non-life-threatening medical conditions an alternative to an emergency room visit.

One Lawndale Express Care is in Ogden Commons, 2642 W. Ogden Ave. Less than half a mile from Mount Sinai Hospital, the clinic is part of the Sinai Chicago health system.

Patients at the urgent care clinic can expect to be seen in under an hour.

“What we’re emphasizing here is convenience,” said Airica Steed, Sinai Chicago executive vice president and chief operating officer.

Hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Patients can call 773-257-6800 to schedule an appointment.

The clinic combines urgent care with an occupational medicine clinic. Providers will treat “minor, non-life-threatening injuries” as well as conduct physicals, laboratory work and X-ray imaging. A full list of services and conditions treated at the facility is available on the Sinai Chicago website.

It is managed by Premier Health, a network of minority-led local providers. There are four patient rooms, but Steed expects it to grow according to the community’s needs.

The clinic is the latest in a series of Sinai additions to Ogden Commons since mid-June and should ease the patient load the nearby hospital. Other facilities include an 18-chair dialysis clinic, a four-suite outpatient surgery center and a three-suite gastrointestinal clinic.

“We’ve designed and modeled all of our programs for this to be a one-stop shop, so you don’t have to run across the street to the main hospital for anything,” Steed said.

In addition to Sinai’s facilities, the Ogden Commons complex includes housing, restaurants and retail spaces. The $200 million development, built on the site of two former public housing developments, was launched in 2018.

Sinai hopes the Ogden facilities improve health care access on the West Side.

In a news release, Sinai called the opening “a pivotal moment,” given its focus on improving health care access “for communities that have been on the outside looking in for far too long.”

By saving people a visit to the emergency room, patients, particularly those on Medicaid or Medicare with comorbidities, can expect lower health care costs. According to Chicago Health Atlas data, North Lawndale’s poverty rate is more than double the citywide average.

Access to mental health and social services also will be offered, Steed said.

“You’ll see a marriage of not just treating the conditions or the symptoms that our patients are coming with, but we’re also asking how do we address food insecurity? How do we address affordable housing?”

Michael Loria is a staff reporter at the Chicago Sun-Times via Report for America, a not-for-profit journalism program that aims to bolster the paper’s coverage of communities on the South and West sides.