Benchmark
7 of 18 Illinois surgery projects plan more space per operating room than the state standard
Every Medicare hospital reports how much building it runs per bed. Illinois hospitals that ask to build must also say how much space each operating room will get, and the state publishes a yardstick to hold them to.
Source: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), Healthcare Cost Report Information System (HCRIS), hospital cost reports, public use file HOSP10FY2023 (form 2552-10). Square feet: Worksheet B-1; beds: Worksheet S-3 Part I. CMS cost report files.
The typical hospital has 2,306 square feet of building for every bed.
Each dot is one of 4,589 hospitals with 25 or more beds and a usable fiscal year 2023 Medicare cost report. The middle half have between 1,282 and 3,539 square feet per bed. The scale is logarithmic: equal distances are equal ratios.
Operating rooms take 7.3% of the typical hospital's building.
That is the median among the 3,428 hospitals that report operating room (OR) space. Another 1,161 report none and drop out of this view; 423 of them are psychiatric hospitals. At the far end, Kansas Surgery & Recovery Center in Wichita, KS, gives 60% of its building to ORs.
The median Illinois surgery plan has 2,370 departmental square feet per operating room.
Each hollow dot is one project in an Illinois certificate of need (CON) filing, 2015 to 2026, that states both its surgery space in departmental gross square feet (DGSF) and its number of ORs. Hollow means proposed: these are plans, not what was built. Another 2 filings were left out because their OR count describes different rooms (see methods).
7 of 18 plan more than the state standard of 2,750 DGSF per OR.
The Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board's guidelines (77 Ill. Adm. Code 1110 Appendix B) give 2,750 DGSF for each room of a Class C surgical operating suite. 11 projects come in at or under it. Rows are compared as filed, so a row for a whole surgery center or perioperative department may include recovery space the standard leaves out.
Where would your project fall?
How these figures were made
- National: the 4,589 hospitals in
v_hcris_hospital_spacewith no square-footage warning and 25 or more beds. Square feet per bed is the cost report's building square feet over its hospital beds. - Illinois: DGSF from a filing's operating-room rows divided by the OR count that describes the same rooms; recovery, prep and procedure rooms are left out because Illinois sizes them separately. One dot per project, the latest filing.
- Percentiles for your project count the peers below it plus half of any ties. The full rules and the SQL are on the methods page.
| Hospital type | Hospitals | 10th percentile | Median | 90th percentile | Median OR share | No OR space |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Short-term acute | 2,769 | 1,370 | 2,616 | 5,007 | 7.3% | 55 |
| Critical access | 707 | 1,463 | 3,346 | 7,233 | 7.7% | 117 |
| Psychiatric | 423 | 509 | 740 | 1,771 | – | 423 |
| Rehabilitation | 347 | 798 | 1,076 | 1,511 | 1.3% | 343 |
| Long-term care hospital | 282 | 413 | 745 | 1,799 | 2.9% | 216 |
| Children's | 58 | 1,736 | 3,713 | 7,253 | 5.2% | 7 |
| Other/special | 3 | 1,934 | 2,133 | 2,946 | 16% | 0 |
| All types | 4,589 | 770 | 2,306 | 5,101 | 7.3% | 1,161 |
| Hospital | Place | Beds | OR share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kansas Surgery & Recovery Center | Wichita, KS | 30 | 60% |
| Siouxland Surgery Center | Dakota Dunes, SD | 38 | 55% |
| Grace Medical Center | Lubbock, TX | 92 | 51% |
| Facility | Project | Year | Status | DGSF | ORs | DGSF per OR | Against the standard | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HSHS St. Elizabeth Hospital ASTC and MOB | Three-story MOB with hospital ASTC, imaging center and physician office shell | 2025 | New construction | 2,304 | 4 | 576 | At or below | |
| HSHS St. Mary's Hospital - Decatur | Hospital right-sizing modernization ($89M) | 2023 | Resulting (total after the project) | 2,544 | 4 | 636 | At or below | |
| Lurie Children's Outpatient Services and Surgical Center | Hospital-owned multi-specialty ASTC (1121 Techny Rd) | 2017 | Renovation | 3,166 | 4 | 792 | At or below | |
| Alton Memorial Hospital | Perioperative services modernization (surgery, pre/post-op) | 2025 | Renovation | 16,092 | 10 | 1,609 | At or below | |
| NorthPointe Neighborhood Hospital | Establish 10-bed neighborhood hospital in existing NorthPointe building | 2024 | Renovation | 1,935 | 1 | 1,935 | At or below | |
| AMITA Health Adventist Medical Center La Grange | Three-level addition and surgical suite modernization/expansion | 2017 | Resulting (total after the project) | 27,301 | 14 | 1,950 | At or below | |
| Fairfield Memorial Hospital | 3-story addition - surgery suite, ED, clinic and skilled nursing modernization | 2018 | Proposed | 7,830 | 4 | 1,958 | At or below | |
| Provident Hospital of Cook County | New 8-story replacement building and demolition of old hospital | 2019 | New construction | 15,672 | 8 | 1,959 | At or below | |
| AMITA Health St. Alexius Medical Center | Surgical suite and support areas modernization/expansion | 2017 | Resulting (total after the project) | 30,110 | 15 | 2,007 | At or below | The department row names 12 ORs; the filing's OR count is 15. |
| Elmhurst Memorial Hospital | Surgery expansion (+3 ORs), 16-bed observation unit, cancer center two-story addition | 2025 | Resulting (total after the project) | 51,900 | 19 | 2,732 | At or below | |
| Morris Hospital & Healthcare Centers | Modernization of selected clinical areas | 2018 | Proposed | 8,236 | 3 | 2,745 | At or below | |
| Morrison Community Hospital | Critical access hospital modernization: ED/surgery addition and med/surg unit addition | 2018 | Resulting (total after the project) | 5,519 | 2 | 2,760 | Above | |
| Northwestern Memorial Hospital | Outpatient Care Pavilion 11th floor - add 8 outpatient ORs | 2015 | Renovation | 23,090 | 8 | 2,886 | Above | |
| Hillsboro Health | 11,341 SF surgery addition replacing two ORs | 2025 | New construction | 6,534 | 2 | 3,267 | Above | The row also includes a procedure room. |
| Northwestern Memorial Hospital | Feinberg/Galter 7th floor surgical expansion (+11 ORs) and laboratory relocation to Olson Pavilion - State Board Staff Report | 2026 | Renovation | 41,257 | 11 | 3,751 | Above | The row also includes recovery space. |
| Advocate Trinity Hospital | 40-bed small-format replacement hospital - State Board Staff Report | 2025 | New construction | 11,979 | 3 | 3,993 | Above | |
| University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago - Ambulatory Care Building | Six-story ambulatory care building with bridge to hospital (supersedes Permit 20-001) | 2026 | New construction | 26,340 | 6 | 4,390 | Above | |
| Mercy Health Hospital and Medical Center - Crystal Lake | Establish 13-bed acute care hospital on 16-acre site | 2017 | New construction | 14,544 | 2 | 7,272 | Above |