Fortune Magazine recently named Kindred Healthcare first among the worlds most admired companies for 2009. (Health Care: Medical Facilities)
Kindred Healthcare, the countrys largest long-term acute care hospital company, is doing its share to communicate with audiences inside and outside the health care community about the specialized care they provide patients. The Hospital Division of Kindred Healthcare operates free-standing hospitals, hospitals-in-hospitals and pulmonary units. With a strategic geographic reach into major markets, Kindred provides the high quality extended care specialized services necessary to meet the complex needs of Americas aging and catastrophically ill population.
A common misperception is that Long Term Acute Care (LTAC) care is strictly for the elderly population. However, while Kindreds Rehab services are highly beneficial for the neuro/stroke and compromised post-operative older patient population; there is also a contingent of young accident victims, severe wound or unresolved infections, complex medical conditions causing multiple system failure.
Kindred LTAC Hospitals provide care to medically complex patients who require prolonged treatment plans and extended recovery time. These patients have serious medical conditions best treated by a physician directed interdisciplinary team of healthcare professionals, including respiratory therapist, nurses, pharmacists, physical, occupational and speech therapists, dietitians and various ancillary services.
According to Fernando Durand, District Director of Sales & Marketing, each member of Kindreds clinical assessment team goes to the referring hospitals to review and evaluate patients and then coordinate the patients care throughout the prolonged recovery period as an extender of the short term hospital.
“Additionally, our hospitals have 24-hour physician support and the same ancillary services found at an acute care hospital, including laboratory, radiology, operating or procedure rooms, intensive care units (ICUs) and telemetry units,” he said.
“We partner with short term acute care (STAC) hospitals, recognized for their ability to stabilize a patients condition, and perform appropriate diagnostic studies to determine the underlying cause of a patient’s hospitalization,” Durand explained. “Once the diagnosis is determined and treatment plan has been established, the patient is ready to be discharged to a Kindred hospital.”
Durand said, “APACHE, a clinical outcome measurement, scores the typical Kindred patient at the same acuity level as many ICU patients across the country.” This is distinctly beneficial for short-term hospitals with a need to transfer medically complex patients from the ICU/CCU to a unit capable of meeting their medical needs. Access to a Kindred LTAC hospital allows a short-term hospital to keep ICU/CCU beds available for patients with the greatest need, such as those transferred from the Emergency Department or post-surgical patients.
All Kindred hospitals and are accredited by The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. In the South Florida area, there are Kindred Hospitals in Coral Gables, Hollywood, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and Melbourne.
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