Cedars-Sinai, UCLA team up to open inpatient rehab facility

Cedars-Sinai Health System and UCLA Health System are forming a partnership to open a 138-bed acute inpatient rehabilitation facility in the former Century City Hospital, Los Angeles.

The new hospital, expected to open in late 2015, will more than triple the capacity for inpatient rehabilitation in the community. The beds currently available for inpatient rehab—28 at Cedars-Sinai and 11 at UCLA Health—are usually full, according to a statement from officials at each organization.

The increased capacity is expected to serve what they call growing needs in the community, as well as provide a place to treat nationwide referrals of complex rehabilitation cases for spinal cord and brain injuries, stroke, amputation, neurological disorders, and musculoskeletal and orthopedic conditions.

Cedars-Sinai and UCLA Health will contribute physicians, clinical staff and other resources to the facility, which they will own along with Select Medical Holdings Corp., which will operate the hospital. The Mechanicsburg, Pa.-based company operates 15 rehab hospitals, 108 long-term acute-care hospitals, and 997 outpatient rehab clinics across the country.

“Meeting the health needs of the community, state and nation often requires a new type of partnership and we look forward to working with UCLA Health System and Select Medical to create a highly advanced, comprehensive rehabilitation center for patients,” Cedars-Sinai Health System President and CEO Thomas Priselac said in a release.

Select Medical launched similar ventures with Penn State Hershey (Pa.) Medical Center and Baylor Health Care System in Texas in 2010 and 2011, respectively.

“Select Medical has begun to share lessons learned and best practices from our experience running top-tier medical rehabilitation hospitals,” Select Medical President David Chernow said in the release. “All of it should add up to a new destination for patients for years to come.”

With operations across 44 states and the District of Columbia, publicly traded Select Medical has reported revenue of $2.2 billion and net income of $85.5 million for the first three quarters of 2013. Financial details of the deal have not been disclosed.

Follow Rachel Landen on Twitter: @MHrlanden