New UChicago Medicine Crown Point facility welcomes first patients

Video Transcript

We're here because of leadership at the University of Chicago. They saw a need. And they saw Crown Point in our region, a place where they can help people and help families when they need help the most.

I think bringing academic medicine here to Northwest Indiana has been one of our goals. And as you can see with this facility, I think we really hit a home run. This is an amazing facility.

Just this one facility, we're looking at a $120 million investment into our city and region. The employees are going to be employed here, some of them will undoubtedly be residents of our city. And then just the people that work here, the families that come and seek the medical treatment here, they may not live in Crown Point. So that's going to benefit our entire business community as a whole.

You start with already the 150 to 200 jobs that are being created out here. And then, as I look across the area, I see hotels being built. I see new food centers being built. This is a beautiful new location in the Crown Point area.

We're here with specialty care, with breadth to complement the community health care and to partner with them to help make this community amongst the safest, healthiest, and best served in the country.

You get to move a hospital or open a new suite in a building, but actually getting to build something brand new from the ground up, you don't get the opportunity to do this very often.

I ran into a gentleman who was on the Crown Point Chamber of Commerce back in the 1980s. We got to talking. And he was telling me that-- literally his words were the town is "abuzz" with excitement. And everyone has lots of questions about what's been happening here in the building.

This is a brand new environment for us. It is unlike anything in Hyde Park, right? It's a new challenge for UChicago Medicine, but that's OK. That's what we do at UChicago Medicine. We embrace those challenges. And so this should just be another day in the life for the staff that provides extraordinary care every day in Hyde Park.

So this is my second week in the life. And it's been great to see even the changes from a month ago to now. For the most part, we're seeing very few problems. But as always, we learn some new things. I can't tell you how excited I am to see the ribbon cutting and to welcome our first patients here.

We are at the ribbon cutting, the grand opening, of the University of Chicago Medicine Crown Point.

When Lauren Jansen felt a tiny bump in her breast, she told herself there was no way it could be cancer. She was just 34 and, per screening guidelines, wouldn’t need her first mammogram for years.

An ultrasound and biopsy last year confirmed stage 2 triple-negative breast cancer, a rare and aggressive form most common in younger women. She started her first of 16 rounds of chemotherapy on her 35^th birthday with a 90-mile, two-plus-hour round trip to the University of Chicago Medicine's Hyde Park campus. Now, she receives her care at a world-class facility just steps from her home in Crown Point.

Jansen was among the first patients to be seen at UChicago Medicine’s new multispecialty care center in Northwest Indiana. UChicago Medicine Crown Point — which opened to patients April 29, 2024 — houses one of only two comprehensive cancer centers in Indiana, offering services that include infusion therapy, radiation, imaging, medical and surgical oncology, and access to hundreds of clinical trials at UChicago Medicine’s main campus in Hyde Park.

“I’m almost done with my treatments, but I think it’s going to be so great for patients, especially in this area, who don’t want to make the commute to Chicago,” Jansen said. “Having the University of Chicago Medicine here for cancer health is huge.”

Located at I-65 and 109th Avenue, UChicago Medicine Crown Point includes an ambulatory surgery center, eight inpatient beds and a small emergency room. Patients also have access to UChicago Medicine and UChicago Medicine Comer Children’s Hospital physicians and specialists — including those in digestive diseases, heart and vascular, neuroscience and orthopaedic surgery.

Academic medicine comes to Northwest Indiana

The two-story, 132,000-square-foot center is UChicago Medicine’s largest offsite facility. A ribbon-cutting ceremony on April 25 welcomed about 250 guests, including state and local elected officials, project partners, community and healthcare partners, patients and colleagues.

“We are so proud and honored to bring academic medicine to this community,” Krista Curell, System COO & President for UChicago Medicine Northwest Indiana, said at the festivities, which included guided tours of the building.

A group of smiling people cut a wide red ribbon in front of the UChicago Medicine Crown Point facility red Welcome sign — UChicago Medicine Crown Point opened April 29, 2024, to much anticipation from residents in Northwest Indiana.

The move to Indiana marks a “hub-and-spoke approach to care delivery” to bring advanced care and clinical research to serve communities beyond the Hyde Park medical campus, said Mark Anderson, MD, PhD, Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs.

And the need is great: More than 110,000 patients are expected to use the Crown Point care center each year. Based on assessment of the market, UChicago Medicine found that about 15% of patients in Northwest Indiana travel outside the region for medical care, with roughly one in five of that group visiting one of the academic health system’s facilities in Chicago and neighboring suburbs.

Anderson stressed the importance of collaboration with community physicians and other providers so that patients don’t have to leave the area to get more complex care. He added that 1,000 UChicago Medicine employees also live in the area.

“I think we really hit a home run,” said University of Chicago Health System President Tom Jackiewicz, noting that the Crown Point expansion could signal more growth in the area. “This is an amazing facility.”

Crown Point Mayor Pete Land said the care center will positively impact the economy and public health of Northwest Indiana by bringing academic medicine closer to where people live and work.

“When I’m a patient, I know I want the best. When my loved ones are patients, I want the best,” Land said at the ribbon cutting. “I want accessible healthcare. I want passionate and dedicated doctors and staff. I want state-of-the-art treatment options. Ladies and gentlemen, this is what we have here.”

For Blase Polite, MD, Physician-in-Chief for Northwest Indiana, the pursuit is personal.

“This is absolutely a professional dream to be able to build a medical facility from the ground up and to really think it through — from the first rivets to where we’re going to put different exam rooms and how we're going to service our patients,” said Polite, a native of Munster, Indiana.

Patients will discover a facility created with their comfort in mind. Particularly eye-catching are the large paper cloud lights at the entrance with the official state bird of Illinois and Indiana — a red cardinal — hanging among them. The cardinal has come to symbolize a loved one who has died visiting to offer hope and love.

Elsewhere, the Indiana Chapter of Studio Art Quilt Association has a temporary display of quilts while other areas feature art relevant to Crown Point and Indiana. A mosaic, called 'It took these hands to build a place to heal,' featuring the hands of everyone who played a role in making the building a reality, will be installed this summer.

“We want to make the hospital experience a little better by the surroundings, to give patients and their families a warm feeling when they come through the doors," said Erika Voss Turckes, UChicago Assistant Director of Interiors and Architectural Design, who was part of the team working with Perkins & Will on the design.

Close-to-home care brings expertise, comfort

Because her mom had breast cancer at age 55, Jansen has always been faithful about performing breast self-exams. That diligence helped catch her own cancer early, leading UChicago Medicine doctors to perform a lumpectomy and radiation — as well as groundbreaking immunotherapy treatment to help her own body detect and fight off the cancer.

While cancer scared Jansen, it hasn’t stopped her. She’s currently enrolled at Purdue University, where she is training to become a nurse practitioner. She also keeps busy with her two children, ages 7 and 5, and plays volleyball on Fridays on a team with some of her best friends.

Lauren Jansen, a dark haired woman, stands smiling in the lobby of UChicago Medicine Crown Point, with the large paper cloud lights visible behind her — Lauren Jansen, a young mother of two living in Crown Point, stands in front of the facility's paper cloud lights. She is among the first patients treated at UChicago Medicine Crown Point.

Jansen, who works as an intensive care nurse at another hospital, was eager to finish out her cancer treatment at UChicago Medicine Crown Point. She said she put full trust in an expert care team close to home who gave her not only what she called the “best of the best care" for her cancer, but also for her as a person. Her doctor, and especially her nurse practitioner, Jody Adams, APP, all made up part of her strong support system.

“I couldn't have gotten through it without them. They gave me comfort knowing that I could make it through this journey,” Jansen said.

Patients can call UChicago Medicine Crown Point at 219-407-5500 to make an appointment.

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