CHICAGO – One recent evening after office hours, Dr. James Magee got a phone call about a patient, a woman in her 40s. She complained of tingling on one side of her body, in her arm and leg. Could it be a stroke?

Magee told the woman's husband to rush her to the free-standing emergency room downstairs from his office in the Chicago suburb of Homer Glen. He told the man: "This is not something that can afford to wait."

The convenience of 24-hour emergency care may be coming to more Illinois communities as hospitals make plans to build stand-alone ERs up to 50 miles from their flagship facilities.