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History

Origins

Northwestern Memorial Hospital's roots date back to 1865 when the then Deaconess Hospital of Chicago was established by local reverend, William A. Passavant, Sr. with a capacity of 15 beds. In the first year, the hospital had treated 75 patients, with most receiving care free-of-charge. A few years later in 1871, Deaconess Hospital was destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire, and Passavant could not afford the cost of a rebuild.

In 1885, after 14 years without an area hospital, Passavant opened a new hospital known as "Emergency Hospital" on Superior Street to better treat emergencies from the area.

In 1888 Wesley Hospital was founded on Dearborn Street in Chicago. In 1890, at Northwestern's request, Wesley Hospital agreed to move to the area around Northwestern University's Medical School and establish a preliminary affiliation to train doctors at Northwestern.

In June 1984, hospital founder William A. Passavant, Sr. died triggering a rename to Passavant Memorial Hospital to honor and memorialize Passavant's life.

The Passavant Memorial Hospital located adjacent to Northwestern University Medical School.

In 1897 a group of local women formed the Passavant’s Woman’s Aid Society to raise money for the continued operation of the hospital. The society was later renamed to the "Woman’s Board of Northwestern Memorial Hospital" after the merger between Passavant and Wesley. The society is now one of Chicago’s oldest charities.

In 1901, both Passavant Memorial Hospital and Wesley Hospital completed building expansion and renovation projects, expanding patient capacity to 65 and 181 beds, respectively.

In 1914 local philanthropist, James Deering made a $1 million donation to Wesley Memorial Hospital to help formalize the hospital’s affiliation with Northwestern University Medical School and to support the care for those that could not afford.

In 1917, doctors and nurses from Wesley and Passavant enlisted to help treat victims of World War I with many serving in France with other Northwestern University staff at a base hospital.

In 1924 it was announced that Wesley would move to the north side campus adjacent to Northwestern University for a stronger affiliation, but funding for construction was delayed until the 1930s. Northwestern University also contacted Passavant Memorial Hospital to offer an affiliation and a land plot near the school for a new hospital, which later began operation in 1929.

In 1925 Passavant Memorial Hospital signed an affiliation with Northwestern University, allowing medical students from Northwestern to learn at the hospital. Additionally, Passavant administration decided to suspend patient care in order to begin fundraising for a new, larger hospital. Four years later, in 1929 Passavant Memorial opened their new 325-bed hospital building on 303 East Superior Street across from their affiliate, Northwestern University Medical School.

In 1937, local philanthropist and steel mogul, George Herbert Jones donated $1 million for construction of a new high-rise building to house Wesley Memorial Hospital. Four years later, in 1941 the new Wesley Memorial Hospital, opened at 250 East Superior Street.

Wesley Memorial Hospital's new hospital was officially completed in 1941, and over the next thirty years the two institutions, began to form bonds because of the fact that they were both the primary hospitals for Northwestern Medicine.

In 1942, doctors and nurses from both Passavant Memorial and Wesley were once again enlisted to help tender aid to soldiers during WWII.

In 1954 the former Chicago Memorial Hospital completed a merger with Wesley Hospital which triggered a rename to Chicago Wesley Memorial Hospital. The two hospitals merged their boards, endowment funds and medical staff as a part of the new agreement.

In 1958 Passavant Memorial Hospital finished construction on their new east pavilion, bringing the total capacity to 350 beds.

In 1959, Wesley Memorial Hospital completed the Ruth Jones Allison Pavilion adding space for additional inpatient beds, upgraded lab facilities and new physician offices.

Due to their proximity and affiliation with Northwestern, the hospitals began working together on a number of clinical services and teaching programs, laying the groundwork for a future merger. The process accelerated with the 1966 establishment of the McGaw Medical Center, a new partnership that was formed between Northwestern, Wesley Memorial, and Passavant Memorial Hospital. A precursor to a full merger, Passavant and Wesley begin looking into collaborative efforts in multi-hospital services and shared inpatient clinical programs.In 1968 Planning and fundraising commenced for a proposed joint women’s hospital that was to be staffed and administered by Northwestern, Wesley Memorial, and Passavant Memorial Hospital.

In 1971 as merger was moving closer, staff from Passavant Memorial and Wesley Memorial gained admitting and hospital privileges at both hospitals in preparation for the upcoming merger.

Merger

On September 1st, 1972 Passavant Memorial Hospital and Wesley Memorial Hospital officially merge the hospitals to become Northwestern Memorial Hospital. The 1,000 bed hospital became one of the largest private nonprofit healthcare institutions in the Midwest and the Chicago region.

In 1975, the Prentice Women’s Hospital and the Northwestern University’s Institute of Psychiatry are combined into Northwestern Memorial Hospital. In 1979, the Olson Critical Care Pavilion opened adjacent to both the Passavant and Wesley Pavilions.

In the 1980s it was realized that the hospital's original inpatient facilities could not keep up with the current technological advances and did not support any future growth. This triggered the planning and designing for a new facility to replace the Passavant Pavilion, Wesley Pavilion, and many of Northwestern's outpatient offices. Construction on the new replacement hospital began In 1994.

In 1996, surgeons from Northwestern Memorial Hospital became the first in Illinois to perform an islet cell transplantation.

In 1992, hospital administration announced that they would embark on a $630 million replacement hospital project to replace the aging Passavant and Wesley Pavilions both dating back to the early 20th century. Two years later, in 1994 construction began on a new two-million-square-foot (190,000 m²) Northwestern Memorial facility on the block bordered by Fairbanks Court, St. Clair, Huron and Erie Streets.

On May 1, 1999, Northwestern Memorial Hospital opened the 17-floor Feinberg Pavilion and 22-floor Galter Pavilion at its current location in Streeterville. The new construction became a model facility for hospital construction attracting healthcare providers to the hospital. The new hospital consisted of 492 all private patient rooms and an emergency department that has the capacity to treat 70,000 patients-per-year. At the end, the replacement hospital cost a total of $580 million and consisted of over 2 million square feet of space.

In 2001 demolition on the Passavant Building proceeded as the university had plans to replace the building with a new research facility. The new research facility was completed in 2005 and has since been named the "Robert H. Lurie Medical Research Center" to honor the $40 million donation from the Ann Lurie Foundation in honor of her late husband. Currently, all that remains from the former Passavant Pavilion is pieces of the wall preserved at the Feinberg Pavilion.

The National Research Corporation honors Northwestern Memorial with its Consumer Choice Award as Chicago’s “most preferred” hospital.

In 2005 the Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute was established at Northwestern Memorial after local philanthropist, Neil G. Bluhm donated $10 million to Northwestern to establish a heart institute.

Modern day

In October 2007, after years of construction, the new Prentice Women’s Hospital opened at 250 East Superior Street, the same site that held the former Wesley Hospital. 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.

In 2009 the William Wirtz family (former owner of the Chicago Blackhawks) donated $19.5 million to Robert H. Lurie Cancer Center at Northwestern Memorial Hospital for cancer research.

The American College of Healthcare Architects recognized Northwestern Memorial for forward-thinking design as it was one of the first hospitals to dedicate private rooms to patients in the main Feinberg and Galter Pavilion buildings. To date, Northwestern Memorial Feinberg and Galter Pavilion buildings make it the third tallest hospital in the United States and the eighth tallest hospital in the world. The neighboring Lurie Children's Hospital, also affiliated with Northwestern, is the second tallest hospital facility in the country.

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.

On October 12, 2015, Northwestern Memorial Hospital named Julie L. Creamer as its first female President. Creamer received her BSN from Marquette University and holds a Master of Science Degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Shortly after graduating from Marquette University she began her nursing career at Northwestern and became a part of the hospital's management team in 1996. She was instrumental in the planning and construction of the new hospital which opened in 1999.

With construction beginning in 2015 and completed in 2019, the Simpson Querrey Biomedical Research Center is a 600,000 sq ft (56,000 m²) building on the hospital campus that houses laboratories dedicated to biomedical research. Future expansion of the 14-story building will bring total dedicated research square footage to roughly 1.2 million. The project was partially funded and eventually named after Louis Simpson and his wife, Kimberly Querrey who made a $92 million donation to the center.

In February 2020, it was announced that Northwestern Memorial Hospital would once again expand bed capacity, building a three-story addition between the Galter and Feinberg Pavilions with 49 new beds.