Shirley Ryan AbilityLab - Virtual Tour
Welcome to the virtual tour of the new Shirley Ryan AbilityLab. Please use this tour to look around this state of the art facility.
Main Entrance
Welcome to the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, the world’s first and only translational research hospital. At 1.2 million square feet, it is the largest rehabilitation hospital in the U.S. Our goal: better, faster outcomes for patients.
Valet & Parking Directions
Guests may use valet service. Staff and other visitors may use the parking entrance off Ontario Street. See more parking informationCarport
The bright carport allows transfer from vehicles into the Ground Floor Lobby — rain or shine.
Ground Floor Lobby
Guests are immediately greeted by vibrant, hand-painted graphics as they make their way to visitor elevators that will transport them to our 10th-floor Sky Lobby for check-in.
Parking Entrance
Our covered awning ensures that you're always welcome , no matter the weather. Valets will be happy to park your vehicle.
Sky Lobby
The Sky Lobby is the welcome center and communal hub of the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, offering expansive city and lake views, lush outdoor gardens and rich educational resources. Greeters welcome and direct visitors upon arrival.
Global Patient Services
Our patients hail from nearly 80 countries from around the world. Global Patient Services works with them to coordinate interpreter services, transport and housing. It also offers personalized support for Military and workers’ compensation patients.
The Henry B. Betts LIFE Center
The LIFE Center is a global resource for patient and family education — in- person and online. It touts an extensive collection of resources and experienced staff.
Nancy's Garden
Nancy’s Garden is a canopied haven enabling patients and visitors to enjoy fresh air, colorful gardens and wonderful city views.
Education & Conference Center
Elegant and flexible, the Conference Center accommodates 300, and can be divided into two or three smaller rooms. The Center offers all AV support, furniture options, micro-kitchen and business equipment.
Academy
The Academy is the external educational arm of the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, offering a broad array of accredited in-person courses, hands-on programs and webinars for clinicians.
Ability Garden
This garden, specially designed for patients, is about movement and progress. Its winding paths offer a compelling invitation to stroll outside … on foot, wheels or prosthetic limbs!
Chapel
This interfaith space is for quiet reflection. Its curved walls symbolize an embrace and extend into the tranquil gardens beyond.
Gathering Garden
The sweeping outdoor Gathering Garden spans the length of the building. Located off the Education & Conference Center, the refreshing spot offers a unique outdoor setting for patients, event receptions and meeting breaks.
Chapel Meditation Room
Interfaith space for quiet reflection with soft light, curved walls and an inspirational art glass window.
Patient Care Stations
Main Patient Care Stations are clinical hubs centrally located in each of our Innovation Centers, offering a welcoming, secure touch point for patients and their families on medical floors.
Innovation Centers
The Shirley Ryan AbilityLab introduces its revolutionary model of care through five Innovation Centers focused on areas of biomedical science with extraordinary promise: Brain; Spinal Cord; Nerve, Muscle & Bone; Pediatric; and Cancer. Innovation Centers serve as inpatient hubs, featuring patient rooms and communal areas.
Patient Room
242 private patient rooms, each with beautiful lake or urban views, tout state-of-the-art designs and equipment facilitating comfort and care.
My Station
A wall monitor displays a secure data/entertainment system called My Station, which allows patients to control their room including putting down the shades, watching TV or playing games. It also provides access to the internet as well as educational content and resources from the LIFE Center.Smart Technology
Smart technology transforms patient rooms into interactive environments, enabling easy access to television, internet, education modules and environmental room controls.Design Optimized for Patients and Families
More than 1,800 staff and patient feedback hours went into designing our patient rooms. Convertible furniture provides a comfortable sleeping option for families.
Vistas
Vibrant Vistas are located throughout our Innovation Centers, offering patients and their families a quiet place for respite and reflection.
HUB
HUBs are inviting spaces for patients and families to dine, relax or participate in therapeutic recreational activities, hobbies or games.
Activities of Daily Living Studios
Studios are used by therapists to help patients regain daily living skills such as cooking, opening cabinets, bathing, doing laundry, etc.
Café
Accessible throughout, seven stations offer healthy choices and classics including a salad bar, deli and pizza stop. The Café offers flexible seating options for patients, groups and meetings.
Child Life Playroom
Our Child Life Program uses play to engage and uplift pediatric patients. The Chicago Blackhawks’ champion spirit inspires.
Pediatric Lab
This kid-customized Lab caters to patients from around the world, allowing children with a range of diagnoses to benefit from the latest technology and best-in-class care. Scaled for smaller bodies and developing minds, the Lab appeals to young imaginations.
Therapy disguised as fun
Many of the Lab’s therapeutic breakthrough techniques, devices, equipment and interventions were developed by our experts, and are often cleverly disguised as fun.
Strength and Endurance Lab - Obstacle Course
A brainchild of our research team, this specially-designed obstacle course features a combination of surfaces, heights and textures to train the brain as patients recover their ability to walk.
Cutting-Edge Technologies
Anti-gravity and weight bearing assistive devices enable walking in a safe environment.
Strength and Endurance Lab - Top Floor
One of five applied research and therapeutic spaces, the two-story Strength + Endurance Lab is designed to help patients build stamina and resilience, improving complex motor skills.
Arms and Hands AbilityLab
The Arms + Hands Lab is a robust environment designed for patients and research participants working on recovering and strengthening complex hand and reaching skills — turning a key, picking up a pen, putting on a sweater.
Legs and Walking Lab
In this two-story, interdisciplinary Lab, doctors, researchers and therapists focus on large motor and rhythmic limb functions, enabling patients to regain balance and muscle memory through high-intensity therapies focused on the lower extremities.
Ability Stairway
We partnered with rigging experts to design the only suspension system of its kind that safely supports patients as they re-learn to climb stairs.
Think and Speak AbilityLab
This Lab combined therapeutic care and scientific application help you recover the building blocks of ability: thinking, reasoning, perception, swallowing, talking & interactions with others.
Prosthetics and Orthotics Workroom
Our prosthetics and orthotics professionals work in close collaboration with your doctors and therapists to ensure that your customized device meets all your needs.
Center for Bionic Medicine 1
The Center focuses on creating clinically viable technologies that advance prosthesis design and control and allow individuals with limb loss to live more independently.
Center for Bionic Medicine 2
Our world-renowned Center for Bionic Medicine continues to make technological breakthroughs that improve the quality of life for individuals with limb loss or other impairments.
Biologics Lab
This laboratory uses tools from molecular biology, cell biology, histology, genetics, experimental and clinical models to translate our understanding of diseases that affect muscles.
Neurological Outpatient Suite
Adult outpatients with conditions and injuries affecting the brain, spinal cord and peripheral nerves undergo intensive therapy and benefit from access to an Activities of Daily Living Studio, treatment rooms and diagnostic radiology.
Musculoskeletal Medicine Outpatient Suite
Adults outpatients undergo comprehensive therapy for pain and limitation from conditions and injuries affecting movement, such as back pain, arthritis or sports injuries. The Suite includes an Activities of Daily Living Studio, treatment rooms and radiology.
Aquatic Center
Aquatic therapy provides a gravity reduced treatment environment, promoting better outcomes. The Center’s 33’ x 22’ pool is kept at therapeutic temperatures, and includes a high-tech jet system, bench for pediatric patients and wheelchair elevator. A locker room and deck side changing areas add to convenience.
Minor Procedures Suite
Part of Radiology & Imaging, this suite eliminates the need to transfer patients for minor procedures and is down the hall from 8 prep and recovery bays for patient monitoring.
Radiology and Imaging
This comprehensive suite offers radiology, MRI, CT scans, fluoroscopy, bone-density imaging, ultrasound and vascular studies, specimen processing and a research lab. Cutting-edge imaging tools rapidly yield defined results and eliminate the need to transfer patients.