Prentice Women's Hospital is an

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.Alberta Health ServicesAcute care.Acce ...

specialty hospital in

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

, United States, located adjacent to both

Northwestern Memorial Hospital Northwestern Memorial Hospital (NMH) is a nationally ranked academic medical center located on Northwestern University's Campus of Northwestern University, Chicago campus in Streeterville, Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship campus for Nort ...

and

Lurie Children's Hospital Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, formerly Children's Memorial Hospital and commonly known as Lurie Children's, is a nationally ranked pediatric acute care children's hospital located in Chicago, Illinois. The hospital has ...

. It provides tertiary-level

obstetric Obstetrics is the field of study concentrated on pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period. As a medical specialty, obstetrics is combined with gynecology under the discipline known as obstetrics and gynecology (OB/GYN), which is a surgic ...

gynecological Gynaecology or gynecology (see American and British English spelling differences) is the area of medicine concerned with conditions affecting the female reproductive system. It is often paired with the field of obstetrics, which focuses on pre ...

, and

neonatal In common terminology, a baby is the very young offspring of adult human beings, while infant (from the Latin word ''infans'', meaning 'baby' or 'child') is a formal or specialised synonym. The terms may also be used to refer to Juvenile (orga ...

care. Prentice Women's Hospital is a member of

Northwestern Medicine Northwestern Medicine, formerly Northwestern Memorial Healthcare, is a non-profit healthcare system affiliated with the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, in Chicago, Chicago, Illinois. Members include research hospitals, Acute ...

and serves as a teaching hospital for the

Northwestern University Northwestern University (NU) is a Private university, private research university in Evanston, Illinois, United States. Established in 1851 to serve the historic Northwest Territory, it is the oldest University charter, chartered university in ...

Feinberg School of Medicine The Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, formerly Northwestern Medical School from 1906 to 2002, is the medical school of Northwestern University and is located in the Streeterville neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. Founded in ...

. The hospital has 256 beds, with 86 AAP verified level III neonatal intensive care unit beds, 32 labor and delivery beds, 86 healthy bassinets, and 10 operating rooms. The hospital is directly attached to the Lurie Children's Hospital via skybridge because Lurie physicians provide care on Prentice's neonatal intensive care units.

History

Original building

Bertrand Goldberg Bertrand Goldberg (July 17, 1913 – October 8, 1997) was an American architect and industrial designer, best known for the Marina City complex in Chicago, Illinois, the tallest reinforced concrete building in the world at the time of complet ...

began design in 1971, after the consolidation of Passavant Deaconess Hospital and Wesley Hospital. It was named for Abra “Abbie” Cantrill Prentice. It was opened in 1975. The building was vacated in 2011Joravsky, Ben (2012-08-16) "Prentice preservationists put Rahm in a bind"

Chicago Reader The ''Chicago Reader'', or ''Reader'' (stylized as ЯEADER), is an American alternative newspaper in Chicago, Illinois, noted for its literary style of journalism and coverage of the arts, particularly film and theater. The ''Reader'' has been ...

after serving as a hospital until the new Prentice Women's Hospital opened nearby at 250 East Superior Street in 2007.Isaacs, Deanna (2012-08-30) "Rahm's golden opportunity: save Prentice hospital"

Northwestern University announced plans to demolish it and replace it with a medical research facility.Kamin, Blair (2012-08-03) "Emanuel noncommittal on fate of Prentice building"

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is an American daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1847, it was formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper", a slogan from which its once integrated WGN (AM), WGN radio and ...

Preservationists and prominent architects (including at least 6

Pritzker Prize The Pritzker Architecture Prize is an international award presented annually "to honor a living architect or architects whose built work demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vision and commitment which has produced consisten ...

winners) had called on Northwestern and the City of Chicago to save the building,ArchitectureChicago Plus blog (2012-08-30) appealing to Chicago's "global reputation as a nurturer of bold and innovative architecture".

Jeanne Gang Jeanne Gang (born March 19, 1964) is an American architect and the founder and leader of Studio Gang (established in 1997), an architecture and urban design practice with offices in Chicago, New York, San Francisco, and Paris. She is known for ...

presented a reuse design incorporating the building into a skyscraper. In the debate over the building's planned demolition, Northwestern argued that the site was needed for medical research on heart disease, cancer, and children's diseases. Preservationists responded that Northwestern Memorial Hospital owns a two-square-block piece of vacant land directly across the street from Prentice, and within a potential skybridge's reach from the university's existing research building.

Current building

The new Prentice Women's Hospital opened on October 20, 2007, on the hospital's northern campus border along Superior Street. This facility would replace the old Prentice Women's Hospital Building which later was demolished in September 2014 for new campus construction. The new hospital doubled the size of the previous women's hospital at 947,000 square feet, with one of the largest Neonatal Intensive Care Units in the country.

Awards

In the 2005-06 '' U.S. News & World Report'': Best Hospital rankings, Prentice Women's Hospital was rated as the #32 best hospital in the United States in the field of gynecology. In the 2018-19 '' U.S. News & World Report'' rankings, Prentice Women's was rated as the #13 best hospital in the United States in the field of gynecology and #11 best hospital in neonatology (ranked with Lurie Children's). In 2021, the hospital received a '' Women's Choice Award'' as a "Best Hospital" in the area of obstetrics (ranked with Northwestern Memorial).

References

External links