Illini Community Hospital broke ground last Friday morning on a $1.6 million express clinic in Pittsfield.
The Illini Xpress Walk-In Clinic will move from 101 East Washington on the square in Pittsfield to the new facility. It will be on the northeast corner of the current hospital campus where the annex building once stood.
The new Illini Express Clinic is expected to feature a drive-thru bay for selected screenings, shots, and other treatment administration that the hospital has been using since the early days of the pandemic.
The close proximity to the hospital is expected to allow for easy transition between the hospital and urgent care when demand is high.
Portions of the project are being funded by the USDA’s Rural Development Funding. USDA Rural Development State Director Betsy Dirksen Londrigan told RFD Illinois this is one of two healthcare projects recently authorized by the Biden Administration in Illinois: “The Biden Administration really focused in on these emergency rural healthcare grants, and rural hospitals have been able to do fantastic things. Illini Community Hospital in Pittsfield received almost a million dollars. It was $891,500 in grant funding to enable them to implement a walk-in, express clinic as well as a drive-up clinic. It’s so funny isn’t it? Before Covid, nobody thought about going through a drive-thru to give a blood sample or to get a test. Now, we’ve all kind of gotten used to it, and come to find out, it’s really popular.”
The downtown clinic served over 5,400 patients in 2022, according to the Pike Press. Blessing Health System kicked in the remaining $730,000 for the cost of the project.
The new facility is expected to be completed and open some time in December.