Plan · Averages
Build the average hospital and you get one nobody runs
Planners start from averages: the typical hospital's beds, visits and hours of surgery. We took the figures 168 Illinois hospitals reported for 2023, fed their medians and means to Delgam's planner, and looked at what it built.
Built from the medians of 168 hospitals
The median hospital
105 beds · 211,000 square feet · 3-story podium, 4-story tower · open it in the planner
Source: Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board, annual hospital profiles, CY 2023. Buildings drawn by the Delgam planner from those figures, at one scale.
Build the median Illinois hospital, and this is what the planner draws.
Take the 168 Illinois general hospitals (those with medical-surgical beds and an emergency department) and the figures each reported to the state for 2023. For every number the planner needs, take the median: 91 medical-surgical beds, 12 intensive care beds, 22,748 emergency visits and 4,357 hours of surgery a year.
The planner turns them into 105 beds and 211,000 square feet: a 3-story diagnostic and treatment podium and a 4-story bed tower.
The median hospital has 1.5 obstetric beds and delivers no babies.
Of 168 hospitals, 84 have no obstetric beds, exactly half, so the median falls halfway between none and the next hospital's 3. Births are zero at 86, a few more than half, so that median is zero. Each median comes from a different hospital, and nothing makes them fit together.
Add up the median of each kind of bed and you get 104.5 beds. The median hospital has 137.
Every hospital's total is the sum of its beds by kind (168 of 168 add up exactly), but medians do not add. Most hospitals have no psychiatric, rehabilitation or pediatric beds, so those medians are zero, while the hospitals that have them still count toward the median total. Built from medians, the hospital comes out smaller than the median hospital.
Use means instead, and it grows to 171 beds and 358,000 square feet.
A mean lets the biggest hospitals pull every figure up: mean surgical hours (9,995) are 2.3 times the median. The mean hospital also has a little of everything, 14 psychiatric beds, 5 rehabilitation beds and 5 newborn intensive care bassinets. Five of the 168 real hospitals have all three.
Only 23 of 168 hospitals are in the middle half on all ten measures.
Being typical on one measure is easy: half the hospitals are, by definition. Add the measures one at a time, keeping the hospitals between the 25th and 75th percentile on each, and the typical ones thin out to 23. Where most hospitals report zero, the middle half includes zero, which makes the test easier, not harder.
FHN Memorial Hospital in Freeport is the real hospital closest to the median.
Its figures sit, on average, 8 percentile points from the median, inside the middle half on all ten measures. Built from its own 2023 figures: 100 beds and 222,000 square feet. Unlike the median hospital, it delivers babies: 254 in 2023.
Next: Genesis Medical Center - Silvis Campus in Silvis.
Its figures sit, on average, 10 percentile points from the median, inside the middle half on all ten measures. Built from its own 2023 figures: 137 beds and 260,000 square feet. Unlike the median hospital, it delivers babies: 238 in 2023.
Then: Jacksonville Memorial Hospital in Jacksonville.
Its figures sit, on average, 10 percentile points from the median, inside the middle half on all ten measures. Built from its own 2023 figures: 121 beds and 249,000 square feet. Unlike the median hospital, it delivers babies: 356 in 2023.
Plan from your own numbers, not the average one.
Every hospital in this story opens in the planner, where any figure can be changed: the median hospital, the mean hospital, FHN Memorial Hospital, Genesis Medical Center - Silvis Campus and Jacksonville Memorial Hospital. The planner shows a range of real projects beside each department rather than one average, for the same reason.
How these figures were made
- Hospitals: the 168 of 206 Illinois hospitals in the 2023 annual profiles with medical-surgical beds and an emergency department. Beds are the beds the state authorizes; emergency visits are persons treated.
- The planner's drivers are each figure's median (or mean, rounded to whole units) taken on its own. Departments are included when their driver is above zero; support departments always are. The 1.5 obstetric beds round to 2 in the planner.
- Middle half: from the 25th to the 75th percentile of each measure, among the 168 hospitals. Closeness to the median: the mean, over the ten measures, of how far a hospital's percentile is from the 50th. Hospitals with a quality flag on any figure the planner uses were not picked.
- Areas are the planner's: departments sized from Illinois standards and cost report benchmarks, grossed up by a factor measured in filings (see Plan). They are what a new building for these figures would need, not the size of any hospital's actual buildings.
The query
SELECT f.ab_fac_id, f.facility_name, f.city, f.ccn, f.data_year, s.url AS source_url, s.data_period,
m.metric, m.qualifier, m.value, m.check_flag
FROM as_built_facilities f
JOIN as_built_sources s ON s.source_id = f.source_id
JOIN as_built_metrics m ON m.ab_fac_id = f.ab_fac_id
WHERE f.state = 'IL' AND m.department IS NULL
AND f.data_year = (SELECT MAX(data_year) FROM as_built_sources WHERE state = 'IL')| Measure | 25th percentile | Median | 75th percentile | Mean | Hospitals at zero |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Medical-surgical beds | 25 | 91 | 168.8 | 115 | 0 |
| Intensive care beds | 0.8 | 12 | 26 | 19 | 42 |
| Emergency visits a year | 8624.8 | 22,748 | 37,123 | 26,975 | 2 |
| Surgical hours a year | 886.3 | 4356.5 | 11790.5 | 9,995 | 8 |
| Births a year | 0 | 0 | 816.5 | 661 | 86 |
| Obstetric beds | 0 | 1.5 | 21.3 | 13 | 84 |
| Psychiatric beds | 0 | 0 | 24 | 14 | 113 |
| Cardiac catheterization labs | 0 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 81 |
| CT scanners | 1 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 4 |
| MRI scanners | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 6 |
| Hospital | Beds | Building gross square feet | Buildings |
|---|---|---|---|
| The median Illinois hospital | 105 | 210,943 | a 3-story diagnostic and treatment podium and a 4-story bed tower |
| The mean Illinois hospital | 171 | 358,458 | a 4-story diagnostic and treatment podium and a 6-story bed tower |
| FHN Memorial Hospital, Freeport | 100 | 222,435 | a 3-story diagnostic and treatment podium and a 4-story bed tower |
| Genesis Medical Center - Silvis Campus, Silvis | 137 | 260,255 | a 3-story diagnostic and treatment podium and a 5-story bed tower |
| Jacksonville Memorial Hospital, Jacksonville | 121 | 248,856 | a 3-story diagnostic and treatment podium and a 4-story bed tower |