Lake Forest Hospital
Encyclopedia
Northwestern Lake Forest Hospital (NLFH) is a community-based hospital in Lake Forest, Illinois
and a wholly owned subsidiary of Northwestern Memorial HealthCare
, one of the nation's premiere academic medical centers. The hospital was established in 1899 as Alice Home on the campus of Lake Forest College
, and in 1942 a new hospital was built in its current location as Lake Forest Hospital. On February 1, 2010, Lake Forest Hospital completed an affiliation agreement with Northwestern Memorial HealthCare and became Northwestern Lake Forest Hospital.
The 205-bed hospital is on a 160-acre (0.65 km2) campus in Lake Forest and provides a comprehensive array of inpatient and outpatient medical and surgical services. At the main campus in Lake Forest, services include an inpatient hospital, a women's center providing maternity and breast care services, a health and fitness center and a nursing care facility. The hospital has nearly 650 board-certified physicians specializing in 91 specialties on its medical staff.
Northwestern Lake Forest Hospital is a partner of Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago, one of the nation’s top-ranked children’s hospitals. A Children’s Memorial Outpatient Center and Children's Memorial hospitalists and neonatologists provide infant and pediatric care 24 hours a day to patients at Northwestern Lake Forest Hospital.
. With the assistance of James G.K. McClure, Lake Forest University (later known as Lake Forest College
) President and First Presbyterian Church Pastor, Dr. Haven raised both financial backing and public support for a hospital on the Lake Forest University campus. In 1889, Alice Home opened as the community hospital.
In 1908, Alice Home expanded by building Contagious Hospital, an isolating, separate hospital to care for patients affected by outbreaks of tuberculosis
, scarlet fever
, typhoid, measles
, mumps
, diphtheria
and whooping cough. In 1918, the Hospital Association of Lake Forest was certified as a legally organized not-for-profit organization, independent of Lake Forest College. In 1921, this association, along with the City of Lake Forest, Lake Forest College, and Alice Home and Contagious Hospital trustees, agreed to consolidate Alice Home and Contagious Hospital into one entity.
) in Lake Forest, Illinois. In 1940, A.B. Dick Jr., her son, successfully convinced his mother that 23 acres of the family farmland ought to be donated for the new hospital. The road leading to the hospital was renamed Westmoreland Road in honor of the Dick family's generosity. Despite war rations, 300 individuals donated $800,000 for the construction of the hospital, including John G. Shedd and the McCormick families, and Lake Forest Hospital opened on November 1, 1942. By 1959, Lake Forest Hospital expanded from 65 to 101 beds and incorporated a hospital pharmacy
. Two new wings were added at the west end of the hospital in 1967.
The City of Lake Forest continued to expand and the hospital provided the growing region with new technology and specialized care. In the late 1960s, Lake Forest Hospital acquired a cobalt machine to improve cancer treatment, an advancement unheard of for a community hospital at the time. By 1979, Lake Forest Hospital established the Westmoreland Long-term Care Center (now Westmoreland Nursing Center), speech and audiology departments, the Center for Pain Treatment and Rehabilitation and the department for Blood Component Therapy. With the opening of the McGaw Medical Building in 1981, Lake Forest Hospital became the first comprehensive healthcare campus in the region. By the late 1980s, Lake Forest Hospital consolidated outpatient surgical services, established the first cardio-pulmonary rehabilitation program in Lake County, constructed its emergency helipad, upgraded radiology to include nuclear medicine and achieved a Level II trauma designation.
Off-campus medical facilities, providing closer access to care, included the addition of a facility in Vernon Hills
in 1986 and medical offices in Gurnee and Libertyville
in 1991 and 1997, respectively. In a continuing effort to move away from treating disease and towards fostering holistic health, the hospital opened two health and fitness centers: one on the Lake Forest Hospital campus (1994) and another in Lindenhurst
(2000). In 2004, the Hunter Family Center for Women's Health, encompassing the Waud Family Maternity Services and the Posy Krehbiel Breast Care Center, opened.
In 2004, the hospital opened an outpatient facility in Grayslake
. The new campus offered acute care
delivered by board-certified emergency room physicians, audiology
and speech therapy, imaging, cardiac and laboratory testing, physical and occupational therapy
, and physician offices. Less than six years after opening, the Grayslake Acute Care Center became an Emergency Center. In 2010, a new Cancer Center was added and in 2011 a Surgery Center opened at the campus.
On April 1, 2009, the hospital expanded its network of diagnostic imaging centers, adding services in Gurnee-Tower Court, Bannockburn
, Libertyville, and Glenview
.
Additional outpatient services include:
In 2011, Northwestern Lake Forest Hospital received two designations for its breast imaging facilities and its overall breast care. The hospital was awarded the American College of Radiology (ACR) Breast Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) Accreditation. In addition, the hospital and Northwestern Grayslake were given a full three-year accreditation designation by the National Accreditation Program for Breast Centers (NAPBC).
In 2010, Northwestern Lake Forest Hospital earned Magnet Recognition from the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC). Only six percent of hospitals across the country, and fewer than 400 hospitals worldwide, have achieved this distinction.
The hospital offers an accredited Outpatient Diabetes Education Program, certified by the American Association of Diabetes Education. The program is the first in Illinois to receive this recognition.
The Wellness 180˚ program at Lake Forest Health & Fitness Center won a 2010 Distinguished Achievement Award from the Medical Fitness Association for its innovation in warding off heart disease and Type II Diabetes.
Lake Forest, Illinois
Lake Forest is an affluent city located in Lake County, Illinois, United States. The city is south of Waukegan along the shore of Lake Michigan, and is a part of the Chicago metropolitan area and the North Shore. Lake Forest was founded around Lake Forest College and was laid out as a town in...
and a wholly owned subsidiary of Northwestern Memorial HealthCare
Northwestern Memorial Hospital
Northwestern Memorial Hospital is one of the nation's preeminent academic medical centers and is the primary teaching hospital for Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. It is the second tallest hospital in the United States and the fourth tallest hospital in the world...
, one of the nation's premiere academic medical centers. The hospital was established in 1899 as Alice Home on the campus of Lake Forest College
Lake Forest College
Lake Forest College, founded in 1857, is a private liberal arts college in Lake Forest, Illinois. The college has 1,500 students representing 47 states and 78 countries....
, and in 1942 a new hospital was built in its current location as Lake Forest Hospital. On February 1, 2010, Lake Forest Hospital completed an affiliation agreement with Northwestern Memorial HealthCare and became Northwestern Lake Forest Hospital.
The 205-bed hospital is on a 160-acre (0.65 km2) campus in Lake Forest and provides a comprehensive array of inpatient and outpatient medical and surgical services. At the main campus in Lake Forest, services include an inpatient hospital, a women's center providing maternity and breast care services, a health and fitness center and a nursing care facility. The hospital has nearly 650 board-certified physicians specializing in 91 specialties on its medical staff.
Northwestern Lake Forest Hospital is a partner of Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago, one of the nation’s top-ranked children’s hospitals. A Children’s Memorial Outpatient Center and Children's Memorial hospitalists and neonatologists provide infant and pediatric care 24 hours a day to patients at Northwestern Lake Forest Hospital.
Alice Home
In 1882, no hospital existed in Lake Forest, Illinois, a small town best known as a summer getaway for Chicago residents. Dr. Alfred C. Haven, a recent newcomer to the town, was Lake Forest's only physician, and the closest hospital was located in Waukegan, IllinoisWaukegan, Illinois
Waukegan is a city and county seat of Lake County, Illinois. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 87,901. The 2010 population was 89,078. It is the ninth-largest city in Illinois by population...
. With the assistance of James G.K. McClure, Lake Forest University (later known as Lake Forest College
Lake Forest College
Lake Forest College, founded in 1857, is a private liberal arts college in Lake Forest, Illinois. The college has 1,500 students representing 47 states and 78 countries....
) President and First Presbyterian Church Pastor, Dr. Haven raised both financial backing and public support for a hospital on the Lake Forest University campus. In 1889, Alice Home opened as the community hospital.
In 1908, Alice Home expanded by building Contagious Hospital, an isolating, separate hospital to care for patients affected by outbreaks of tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
, scarlet fever
Scarlet fever
Scarlet fever is a disease caused by exotoxin released by Streptococcus pyogenes. Once a major cause of death, it is now effectively treated with antibiotics...
, typhoid, measles
Measles
Measles, also known as rubeola or morbilli, is an infection of the respiratory system caused by a virus, specifically a paramyxovirus of the genus Morbillivirus. Morbilliviruses, like other paramyxoviruses, are enveloped, single-stranded, negative-sense RNA viruses...
, mumps
Mumps
Mumps is a viral disease of the human species, caused by the mumps virus. Before the development of vaccination and the introduction of a vaccine, it was a common childhood disease worldwide...
, diphtheria
Diphtheria
Diphtheria is an upper respiratory tract illness caused by Corynebacterium diphtheriae, a facultative anaerobic, Gram-positive bacterium. It is characterized by sore throat, low fever, and an adherent membrane on the tonsils, pharynx, and/or nasal cavity...
and whooping cough. In 1918, the Hospital Association of Lake Forest was certified as a legally organized not-for-profit organization, independent of Lake Forest College. In 1921, this association, along with the City of Lake Forest, Lake Forest College, and Alice Home and Contagious Hospital trustees, agreed to consolidate Alice Home and Contagious Hospital into one entity.
Lake Forest Hospital
By 1940, Lake Forest had radically changed from a summer destination to a year-round, permanent residence for many families. The significant increase in population strained Alice Home's resources. Between 1939 and 1940, the clinical staff at Alice Home managed more than 600 operations, 2,000 outpatients and 3,000 lab tests. Without the ability to expand further onto the college campus, community members and hospital staff began considering the establishment of a new, larger institution to meet these growing needs. Mrs. Mary Dick, wife of the late Albert Blake Dick Sr., lived alone on the Westmoreland Farm (named after the family's origins in Westmoreland, PennsylvaniaPennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
) in Lake Forest, Illinois. In 1940, A.B. Dick Jr., her son, successfully convinced his mother that 23 acres of the family farmland ought to be donated for the new hospital. The road leading to the hospital was renamed Westmoreland Road in honor of the Dick family's generosity. Despite war rations, 300 individuals donated $800,000 for the construction of the hospital, including John G. Shedd and the McCormick families, and Lake Forest Hospital opened on November 1, 1942. By 1959, Lake Forest Hospital expanded from 65 to 101 beds and incorporated a hospital pharmacy
Pharmacy
Pharmacy is the health profession that links the health sciences with the chemical sciences and it is charged with ensuring the safe and effective use of pharmaceutical drugs...
. Two new wings were added at the west end of the hospital in 1967.
The City of Lake Forest continued to expand and the hospital provided the growing region with new technology and specialized care. In the late 1960s, Lake Forest Hospital acquired a cobalt machine to improve cancer treatment, an advancement unheard of for a community hospital at the time. By 1979, Lake Forest Hospital established the Westmoreland Long-term Care Center (now Westmoreland Nursing Center), speech and audiology departments, the Center for Pain Treatment and Rehabilitation and the department for Blood Component Therapy. With the opening of the McGaw Medical Building in 1981, Lake Forest Hospital became the first comprehensive healthcare campus in the region. By the late 1980s, Lake Forest Hospital consolidated outpatient surgical services, established the first cardio-pulmonary rehabilitation program in Lake County, constructed its emergency helipad, upgraded radiology to include nuclear medicine and achieved a Level II trauma designation.
Off-campus medical facilities, providing closer access to care, included the addition of a facility in Vernon Hills
Vernon Hills, Illinois
Vernon Hills is a village in Lake County, Illinois, United States. The population was 20,120 at the 2000 census, and estimated to be 23,957 as of 2005...
in 1986 and medical offices in Gurnee and Libertyville
Libertyville, Illinois
Libertyville is an affluent northern suburb of Chicago in Lake County, Illinois, United States. It is located west of Lake Michigan on the Des Plaines River. The 2000 census population was 20,742; the 2005 estimate was 21,760...
in 1991 and 1997, respectively. In a continuing effort to move away from treating disease and towards fostering holistic health, the hospital opened two health and fitness centers: one on the Lake Forest Hospital campus (1994) and another in Lindenhurst
Lindenhurst, Illinois
Lindenhurst is a village in Lake County, Illinois, United States. The population was 12,539 at the 2000 census, and estimated to be 14,403 as of 2005...
(2000). In 2004, the Hunter Family Center for Women's Health, encompassing the Waud Family Maternity Services and the Posy Krehbiel Breast Care Center, opened.
In 2004, the hospital opened an outpatient facility in Grayslake
Grayslake, Illinois
Grayslake is a village in Lake County in the U.S. state of Illinois. It is located in the Chicago metropolitan area, about north of Chicago’s downtown, west of Lake Michigan, and south of the Wisconsin border....
. The new campus offered acute care
Acute care
Acute care is a branch of secondary health care where a patient receives active but short-term treatment for a severe injury or episode of illness, an urgent medical condition, or during recovery from surgery...
delivered by board-certified emergency room physicians, audiology
Audiology
Audiology is the branch of science that studies hearing, balance, and related disorders. Its practitioners, who treat those with hearing loss and proactively prevent related damage are audiologists. Employing various testing strategies Audiology (from Latin , "to hear"; and from Greek , -logia) is...
and speech therapy, imaging, cardiac and laboratory testing, physical and occupational therapy
Occupational therapy
Occupational therapy is a discipline that aims to promote health by enabling people to perform meaningful and purposeful activities. Occupational therapists work with individuals who suffer from a mentally, physically, developmentally, and/or emotionally disabling condition by utilizing treatments...
, and physician offices. Less than six years after opening, the Grayslake Acute Care Center became an Emergency Center. In 2010, a new Cancer Center was added and in 2011 a Surgery Center opened at the campus.
On April 1, 2009, the hospital expanded its network of diagnostic imaging centers, adding services in Gurnee-Tower Court, Bannockburn
Bannockburn, Illinois
Bannockburn is a village in West Deerfield and Vernon townships of Lake County, Illinois, United States. The population was 1,429 at the 2000 census...
, Libertyville, and Glenview
Glenview, Illinois
There are at least two locations in Illinois called Glenview:*Glenview, Cook County, Illinois, a northern suburb of Chicago*Glenview, St. Clair County, Illinois, an eastern suburb of St. Louis...
.
Northwestern Memorial HealthCare Affiliation
On February 1, 2010, Lake Forest Hospital and Northwestern Memorial HealthCare announced an affiliation agreement to form a premier integrated healthcare system for Chicago. Lake Forest Hospital was renamed Northwestern Lake Forest Hospital and became a subsidiary of Northwestern Memorial HealthCare.Northwestern Lake Forest Hospital
The main hospital is located on a 160-acre campus at 660 North Westmoreland Road in Lake Forest. Also on the campus is the Westmoreland Nursing Center, Bays (900) Medical Office Building, McGaw (800) Medical Office Building, 700 Medical Office Buildings, Dearhaven Child Care and Learning Center, and the Lake Forest Health & Fitness Center.Northwestern Grayslake
The Northwestern Grayslake campus facility opened in 2004. Located at 1475 East Belvidere Road (Route 120) in Grayslake, Illinois, this location evolved quickly from an acute care center to a full-service outpatient campus. This location offers an Emergency Center, a Cancer Center and a Surgery Center.Additional outpatient services include:
- Audiology
- Diagnostic Cardiology
- Diagnostic Imaging
- Emergency Center
- Laboratory Services
- Rehabilitative Services
- Speech Pathology
Satellite Medical Offices
Outpatient clinical services are delivered at facilities in Bannockburn, Glenview, Gurnee-Brookside, Gurnee-Tower Court, Libertyville, Lindenhurst and Vernon Hills.Health & Fitness Centers
Lake Forest Health & Fitness Center, located on the campus of Northwestern Lake Forest Hospital, and Lindenhurst Health & Fitness Center in Lindenhurst, Illinois are both owned and operated by the hospital.Recognition & Awards
For seven consecutive years, Northwestern Lake Forest Hospital has been named the 'Consumer Choice' Hospital for Lake and Kenosha counties according to a survey by National Research Corporation for having the best doctors, best nurses, best image and reputation, and best overall quality.In 2011, Northwestern Lake Forest Hospital received two designations for its breast imaging facilities and its overall breast care. The hospital was awarded the American College of Radiology (ACR) Breast Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) Accreditation. In addition, the hospital and Northwestern Grayslake were given a full three-year accreditation designation by the National Accreditation Program for Breast Centers (NAPBC).
In 2010, Northwestern Lake Forest Hospital earned Magnet Recognition from the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC). Only six percent of hospitals across the country, and fewer than 400 hospitals worldwide, have achieved this distinction.
The hospital offers an accredited Outpatient Diabetes Education Program, certified by the American Association of Diabetes Education. The program is the first in Illinois to receive this recognition.
The Wellness 180˚ program at Lake Forest Health & Fitness Center won a 2010 Distinguished Achievement Award from the Medical Fitness Association for its innovation in warding off heart disease and Type II Diabetes.