Bucks County’s first freestanding rehabilitation hospital
opens for business next week in Langhorne, Pa.
The $20.4 million St. Mary Rehabilitation Hospital was
created through a joint venture involving St. Mary Medical Center and Centerre
Healthcare. St. Mary is part of CHE Trinity Health, one of the largest Catholic
health systems in the country. Centerre is a Nashville-based health-care
company that develops rehab hospitals in partnership with acute-care hospitals.
St. Mary Rehabilitation Hospital on Langhorne-Newtown Road
was built across the street from St. Mary’s main campus and its 373-bed medical
center. When fully operational, the 50-bed hospital expects to have 143
employees, 80 of whom are coming over from the inpatient rehabilitation unit at
St. Mary.
Lisa Haney, who joined St. Mary in 2011 as director of its
31-bed inpatient rehab unit, is CEO of the new hospital.
“There are a lot of great rehabilitation hospitals in this
region — Moss, Magee, Bryn Mawr Rehab and Penn’s [Institute of Rehabilitation,
where Haney was formerly administrator] — but if you live in Bucks County, they
are an hour away,” Haney said. “If you have an older couple in Bucks County and
the husband suffers a stroke, do you think his 75-year-old wife wants to drive
into the city and find parking to see her husband [during his rehabilitation]?
Haney said St. Mary Rehabilitation’s closest competition is
probably St. Lawrence Rehabilitation Center in Lawrenceville, N.J., along with
the sub-acute-care centers in Bucks County. Sub-acute-care centers, she noted,
are licensed and regulated as nursing homes and don’t provide the same
“intensity of services” that a rehabilitation can provide to patients who need
the higher level of care in a hospital setting.
Haney noted in recent years, in addition to caring for its
own patients, St. Mary has seen the percentage of patients in its inpatient
rehab unit who were referred from other hospitals climb to 22 percent from 8
percent. She expects that number to climb at the new rehab hospital as they
bring onboard clinical liaisons, whose job will be to let other hospitals know
about the services available at St. Mary Rehabilitation.
The rehab hospital’s design features four specialized units
or pods, each with the accommodations and specially trained staff required to
treat patients with different rehab needs.
The specialties of the four pods focus will be:
Stroke recovery
Neurology recovery, for patients with brain injuries
Spinal cord injury and other neurological conditions
Muscular skeletal care, for patients with traumatic injuries
including amputations
Among the other features of the two-story hospital are the
latest in rehabilitative equipment and assistive devices, therapy gyms, and a
transition-to-community apartments and activities of daily life suite where
patients and their caregivers can practice and prepare for leaving the hospital
and returning home.
Outside the hospital, a customized therapy courtyard will
boast a gazebo, basketball backboard system, walking path and putting green.
Multiple-surface walkways — including brick, gravel, wood and concrete — are
being created so patients can practice walking or moving about in real-world
conditions. A sports utility vehicle will be parked in the courtyard to allow
patients to practice getting in and out of a vehicle.
Stacy Johnson, director of business development at St. Mary
Rehabilitation, said a key focus of the hospital will be working with patients
and families members on activities of daily living — from doing laundry to
cooking meals to getting in and out of the shower — so the hospital knows when
a patient is ready to be discharged, and patients feel less anxious about going
home.
Haney noted the first challenge a patient typically faces
after being discharged is getting into a car, a task that can scare patients if
they haven’t practiced doing it.
“We want to do everything we can to prevent patients from
experiencing those feelings,” Johnson said.
St. Mary’s inpatient rehab unit were brought into the
planning process early on to make suggestions.
“Changes were made to the original plan based on what the
clinical staff felt was important,” Johnson said.
Haney said as staff members are brought over for tours and
training, she notices they exhibit a strong “sense of ownership” in the
hospital as they see their suggestions were incorporated into the final
product.
An outpatient exam room, for example, was created off the
main lobby at the request of physicians Bathrooms in the hospital rooms, which
are all private, were placed to allow for large windows that provide more
sunlight and better views. Instead of centralized nursing stations, smaller
stations were set up in each of the hospital’s four pods so nurses are closer
to patients. Closets were built into the walls in hallways so linen carts don’t
block traffic.
“I think what we’ve created here is so user-friendly and
patient-friendly,” Haney said. “I can’t wait to get patients in here.”
Source: Philadelphia
Business Journal
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