What can a medical facility with only 44 beds realistically hope to accomplish?
If those 44 beds are at the newly renovated and expanded Lawnwood Physical Rehabilitation Center in Fort Pierce, the answer might well be “more than most of us ever imagined.”
Dr. Steven Adler and facility director Dave Forest explain.
The center, they say, offers medically supervised physical therapy and rehabilitation services for patients suffering from strokes, trauma, brain injuries, hip fractures, spinal cord injuries, Parkinson’s disease, hip or knee replacements, cognitive and perceptual deficits and a host of other problems.
The National Institutes of Health states this specialized form of care “reduces complications and allows faster recoveries,” while helping patients return home sooner than those who don’t receive such in-patient rehab treatments.
Forest adds, “One of the things that sets us apart – because there are a lot of different rehab centers in the community – is that we are truly an acute rehab facility. We’re not only doing the therapy services, we’re doing a lot of the medical management as well and we do have a psychiatrist on staff as well as hospitalists who work with all the patients here.”
In what’s known as a “skilled nursing rehab facility,” Forest points out, patients might be seen by a physician once every 30 days or so, but at Lawnwood’s physical rehabilitation center, patients are seen by a doctor every day.
“Patients in this facility,” Forest continues, “get a lot more therapy time than they would at a skilled nursing facility-based rehab center, too. Three hours a day minimum.”
Forest can’t resist adding that while “Medicare governs how we function and operate, we took it a step further. We are accredited by CARF (the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities). We’re the only facility in St. Lucie or Indian River counties that is so accredited.”
“That,” he continues, “means there are a lot of different standards that need to be met, along with continuous improvement of the program to benefit the patients that we serve.”
Once inside the building, spotting the most recent improvement to the facility is pretty easy: It is 9,300 square feet of new space, making it one of – if not the – largest such facility on the Treasure Coast.
Ten additional private rooms were created as well as a new 2,600-square-foot gym, fully-stocked with the latest equipment, where therapists work with patients to improve balance, coordination, physical function and mobility.
Perhaps even more impressively, the facility also now boasts a large and very special “apartment.”
It’s an apartment that no one lives in, but hundreds learn in. Or re-learn in.
That re-learning can include things most of us take for granted such as bathing, dressing, cooking, housekeeping, managing bills and using a computer again under changed circumstances, with a new medical condition or physical limitation.
The apartment is equipped with a complete kitchen with appliances, drawers, cabinets, shelves, a washer, a dryer, closets and a full bedroom that replicates a typical home setting. Patients are able to safely re-learn the tasks they’ll face at home and regain their functional independence before being discharged.
There’s also a new 1,400-square-foot dining room, game room and family room.
Dr. Adler, who had been called away for an emergency “rapid response” call, returns to say “we expect to be able to return more members of the community back to their homes even faster,” thanks to those new additions and to an ever-growing staff of highly trained specialists.
Not all patients at the Lawnwood Physical Rehabilitation Center are there recovering from procedures performed at Lawnwood Regional Medical Center.
“We get patients from Palm Beach County, from Okeechobee County and elsewhere who choose to have their rehab services here,” Forest says.
Melissa Oliveira, a senior care specialist at Lawnwood, joins the conversation by pointing out “there is a referral process. If it’s from outside the hospital, a primary care physician may notice a patient is having medical symptoms – maybe they are diabetic or maybe they have Parkinson’s – and that primary care physician would make a referral to us.”
And now there’s more room for more patients.
In 2016, the Lawnwood Physical Rehabilitation Center had some 833 admissions in what was then only a 34-bed facility. Adler says this new space “will enable us to accept even more of the patients who require these services.”
The Lawnwood Physical Rehabilitation Center is at 1860 N. Lawnwood Circle in Fort Pierce. The phone number is 772-467-3960.
