O'FALLON, Ill. — Just seven years after opening its doors in O'Fallon, Illinois, administrators at St. Elizabeth's Hospital are looking to expand.
“We’ve outgrown our hospital,” HSHS St. Elizabeth’s CEO Chris Clay said.
For an example of how busy the hospital has gotten, Clay said people should look no further than the ER.
“Prior to moving to O’Fallon, we averaged 70 encounters a day in the emergency department,” Clay said. “Today, we average 140-160 emergency visits per day.”
That’s why hospital is looking at a $50-million expansion to add a three floor, 20,000-square-feet ambulatory surgical treatment center to its campus.
“We have to get that surgical care that belongs in an outpatient environment out of the hospital and into an outpatient environment so that we can take care of bigger heart, bigger neuro, bigger cancer care,” Clay said.
“People now many times have to go out of state to get those services,” O’Fallon Mayor Herb Roach said. “One of the groups that’s going to be a very active participant in that is Cardinal Glennon, to help treat children.”
According to Roach, St. Elizabeth’s would also add 70,000-square-feet of office space allowing existing practices to expand their staff and accept more patients.
“They have just maxed out their capabilities and their facility that they have,” Roach said. “To continue to offer, in a growing area, the services that are needed they’ve got to look for new space.”
That’s why Roach had this message for the Illinois Deptartment of Public Health, which still has to sign off on the plan: “Gentleman, we need these facilities."
If the expansion receives approval by the state, it's expected for work to begin in spring of 2025 with work wrapped up by Christmas of 2026.
A spokesperson for HSHS St. Elizabeth's said in a statement: “We are in the early stages of the planning process for additional resources to complement the services HSHS St. Elizabeth Hospital and our physicians provide to O'Fallon and surrounding communities. We are confident the Illinois Health Facilities Review Board will review our application and agree that adding an outpatient surgical center would significantly benefit our patients by improving access to high-quality surgical services from their preferred health system much closer to home."