A $29.3 million child and adolescent behavioral health center in West Peoria received the green light Tuesday from the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board. [Health News Illinois]

The project by UnityPoint Health will include 44 acute mental illness beds, as well as outpatient services and space for family support groups, education seminars and community services. 

UnityPoint representatives told board members there is an increasing demand for services in the Peoria region, and that the existing space at UnityPoint Health-Methodist is no longer adequate to address it.

Jeanine Spain, executive vice president and chief operating officer at UnityPoint Health – Central Illinois, said that 60 percent of children and adolescents over the past three years have had to leave the community to receive care, with the closest hospital specializing in such services 80 miles away.

“Having your child hospitalized to begin with, and then having to have that transferred out of the community is a bigger burden on families and loved ones, along with the children,” she said. “It's just imperative that we really get behind this project.”

The project, which the board approved unanimously, is anticipated to be completed by the end of 2023.

Additionally, the review board approved Rush Copley Medical Center's plan for a $21.3 million modernization of its Aurora facility. The plan calls for more than 15,000 square feet of space to be built above the existing emergency department to house a 20-room observation unit and for the relocation of existing imaging services and equipment.

David Petasnick, vice president of operations at Rush Copley Medical Center, said recent years have shown the importance of having a clinical decision unit, noting they have had to care for observation patients using the hospital’s ambulatory outpatient area. 

“The development of the CDU will result in an improved healing environment for all Rush Copley patients by ensuring that all of our patients are going to be in appropriate care settings to receive optimal care,” he said.

The project is expected to be completed by August 2023.

The board also approved a $13.2 million plan by OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria to build out shell space to house physician office space at the OSF Comprehensive Cancer Center.

The project is expected to be completed by June 2024.

And it unanimously approved a $6.7 million plan to add a 10-bed rehabilitation unit at Kindred Hospital-Sycamore. 

The project, which fell one vote shy of the six necessary to pass at June’s meeting, was approved after the applicants reduced the number of long-term acute care beds from 69 to 54, which officials said addressed a previous concern that the project exceeded the number of rehabilitation beds needed in the region.

 The board also approved a $952,000 plan to add 12 stations to the existing 12-station Dialysis Care Center Olympia Fields. 

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