|
About North Chicago VA Medical Center
 The North Chicago VA Medical Center's (VAMC) mission is a caring
community, proud to provide patient centered, coordinated health
care to Veterans, Navy and all VA/DoD sharing patients. The
medical center consists of 150 operating hospital beds, 204
nursing home care beds, a 60-bed domiciliary for homeless
veterans, and 89 beds for alcohol and drug abuse.
North Chicago VAMC is an affiliated facility with appropriate
acute care components, which are necessary to fulfill its
mission of mental health, extended and primary care. These
supportive acute components include primary and secondary
medical care, ambulatory surgery and rehabilitation medicine to
support an aging veteran population.
North Chicago has Community Based Outpatient Clinics in
McHenry and Evanston, Illinois. The Vet Center in Evanston is
co-located with North Chicago’s Evanston CBOC. A third CBOC is
located in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
North Chicago VAMC, is part of the Veterans Integrated
Service Network (VISN) 12, which includes VA Chicago Health Care
System; Hines VA Hospital; North Chicago VAMC; Milwaukee VAMC;
Madison VA Hospital; Tomah VAMC; and Iron Mountain VAMC. These
VA facilities make up a regional health care system that
provides a full spectrum of health care to veterans. North
Chicago VAMC serves as the long-term care referral center for
this area's medical and mental health patients.
North Chicago VAMC has an affiliation with the Rosalind
Franklin University of Medicine and Science, Chicago Medical
School, which is located adjacent to the medical center on land
leased to it from the VA.
In addition, North Chicago VAMC provides training in
audiology/speech pathology, biomedical engineering, dental
assisting, medical technology, pharmacy, nursing, physical
therapy, podiatry, psychology, social work, and many other
areas. Over 440 residents, interns and students were trained at
North Chicago VAMC in fiscal year 2004.
The Research programs at North Chicago VAMC and Hines VAH
were consolidated during FY97. The primary objective of the
amalgamation is to augment patient care by increasing the
quantity and quality of research while reducing administrative
cost. Biomedical and clinical research is ongoing in such areas
as molecular biology, cardiology, oncology, alcoholism,
immunology, diabetes, substance abuse, spinal cord injuries,
speech pathology, aging, pulmonary, health care outcomes,
infectious diseases, vision, psychiatric illness, rehabilitation
medicine and behavioral sciences.
The medical center, which is located midway between Milwaukee
and Chicago, is bordered on three sides by the Great Lakes Naval
Training Center. North Chicago VAMC has significant sharing
agreements with the Great Lakes Naval Training Center. The
sharing agreements include laboratory tests, fire protection,
laundry, supplies, and blood products. Also, all Great Lakes
Naval Hospital Corps School corpsmen receive their last nine
days of training at North Chicago VAMC. It is the first true
hands on training with patients for the corpsmen. The North
Chicago VAMC and the Naval Hospital Great Lakes are in the
process of developing a federal health care system that would
care for veterans, active duty, dependents and retired
military.
|
