Last week, the Chicago Tribune reported that patient volume at the new Lurie Children’s Hospital has “surged, more than doubling hospital projections” in the five months it has been open. Revenue is also up 12.9 percent.

Is anyone who has seen this hospital surprised by this news?

First of all, it’s in a prime location in an area known as Streeterville, just off North Michigan Avenue up the street from the city’s business district. It’s also adjacent to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, and Prentice Women’s Hospital.

Secondly, the building design is spectacular. Hats off to the design team of ZGF Architects, Solomon Cordwell Buentz, and Anderson Mikos Architects for successfully executing the vision of the hospital’s leaders.

Working with Chicago’s iconic museums and civic organizations, hospital executives developed “themes” for each inpatient floor and other public spaces that provide positive distractions and are nicely integrated into the interior design.  An 11th floor Sky Garden offers an indoor place of respite, complete with real plants, a multicolored light wall, and fabulous views of the surrounding cityscape.

Patient floors have both decentralized and centralized nursing stations. Private acuity adaptable rooms feature ample support space for family members.

It remains to be seen how efficiently the world’s first vertical children’s hospital will operate and how often some of the themed areas in the building are used by patients and/or their siblings. I’ll also be curious to see this Pebble Project’s data that compares the new facility to the old — for things like patient satisfaction, re-admission rates, transfers, errors, and staff turnover.

For more on the building’s design and images, see Todd Hutlock’s article in the November 2012 issue of HEALTHCARE DESIGN magazine or visit the hospital’s website for a virtual tour.

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