Plans for Provident Hospital approved by state health board

A state health board approved plans for Cook County’s new Provident Hospital, moving the hospital closer to opening as early as 2022.

The Illinois Health Facilities & Services Review Board approved Cook County Health’s certificate of need on Tuesday, meaning the proposed hospital can now move forward. The health system submitted the application to the review board in July.

County health officials told the Chicago Sun-Times in August they planned to build a new, roughly $240 million Provident Hospital on land west of, and adjacent to, the current Provident Hospital at 500 E. 51^st Street. With the approval, and if all else goes as planned, the new hospital could open in late 2022, officials said in August when they unveiled the plans.

The new hospital will boast 42 medical and surgical beds, six beds in the intensive care unit, eight operating rooms and two procedure rooms, diagnostic radiology and cardiovascular imagery, an 18-bay emergency department and 70 outpatient exam rooms, according to plans from August.

In a statement, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle said the hospital “has served as a beacon of hope since it first opened in 1891 as an African-American hospital,”

“A new modern facility will allow CCH to help close the health equity gap by providing the community with high-quality health care close to where they live,” Preckwinkle’s statement continued.