Kindred Healthcare has begun construction of a new long term acute care (LTAC) facility in West Palm Beach. Groundbreaking ceremonies took place on Friday, February 2, 2007 at the Riviera Beach location for the new 70-bed facility that will become the fourth Kindred facility in South Florida. Others are located in Coral Gables, Fort Lauderdale and Hollywood.
“This is a great location and the new facility will greatly improve access to Kindreds special kind of care for patients and families in this region,” said Carol Cregan, Director of Development for Kindred Healthcares corporate office. “Our Fort Lauderdale hospital has served many patients from the West Palm Beach region for the past twenty years, and they had to travel for more than an hour to that location. We are pleased that now there will be a more convenient location for them. The new hospital is in Riveria Beach, just north of West Palm Beach, and is right off of I-95. Kindred will have a total of nine hospitals throughout Florida when this one is open.”
Kindred is partnering with GAETA Development Company, a Palm Beach developer, to manage construction of the project. The new facility will feature all private rooms, a 10-bed Intensive Care Unit and an Operating Room, plus a full range of ancillary services. Like other Kindred hospitals, it will specialize in the care of persons who are referred from short-term, acute care hospitals for ongoing management of complex medical problems. Kindred specializes in ventilator and respiratory care, wound care and care of persons with multisystem problems, who are frequently technology-dependent.
Kindreds LTAC hospitals provide an acute level of care and services to patients who have often had prolonged admissions to intensive care units and have significant acute medical needs. The care of these challenging patients demands a well coordinated team effort and close monitoring, plus aggressive, meticulous clinical management. Kindred has an interdisciplinary team of health care professionals, including doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, wound care specialists, physical therapists, nutritionists and others who understand the complexity of care required to help patients reach their optimum level of functioning following serious illness. According to Ted Welding, executive director of Kindred South Florida Hospitals, the demand for LTAC facilities is growing, and Kindred is a national leader in providing this level of care.
“With advances in technology, more and more people are being kept alive with complex conditions, and they have highly specialized needs,” said Welding. “Kindred now has 80 hospitals in 30 states, but many parts of the country are still underserved in regard to long term acute care. Kindred is in the process of opening four new facilities right now, including this one.”
Kindred LTAC hospitals offer expert care to persons who are ventilator-dependent, or partially dependent, or are having difficulty being weaned from a ventilator. The wound care program focuses on the care of persons with chronic or slow healing wounds secondary to surgery, decubitus ulcers, injuries, burns and vascular problems.
Misconceptions about LTAC facilities are common and Kindred strives to educate both the health care industry and the public about this relatively new approach to care. Long term acute care is not chronic care or rehabilitation care; LTAC facilities are licensed as acute care hospitals, not skilled nursing facilities, and are eligible for JCAHO accreditation. They are certified by Medicare as long term care hospitals and are reimbursed under a PPS/DRG system. LTAC hospitals dont have emergency rooms; admissions are initiated by referral. Patients who require the LTAC level of care have multiple, co-morbid conditions that require daily intervention by a physician. Average length of stay in a Kindred LTAC facility is 29 days.
The groundbreaking ceremony for the new Kindred West Palm Beach hospital was attended by several VIP guests, including two former patients who had initially been admitted to Kindred on ventilators. Both of them were successfully weaned off the ventilators and able to walk out of the hospital at discharge.
“The two gentlemen were very excited to be there, to participate in this very special event,” says Cregan. “The expertise of the care team at Kindred made it possible for them to get their lives back. Our new facility will make our special care available to many more people in the South Florida region.”
Kindred Healthcare, Inc. is based in Louisville, Kentucky and has over 500 facilities, including LTAC hospitals, skilled nursing centers, institutional pharmacies and rehabilitation services.
