Elliot Hospital, Manchester, N.H., has begun offering acute rehabilitation services through a leasing arrangement with Salem, N.H.-based Northeast Rehabilitation Hospital Network, a move it expects to save its patients time and money.
Elliot is leasing its seventh floor, previously a medical-surgical unit, to Northeast Rehab, which is providing care in 15 newly built, private inpatient rooms. Hospital officials declined to release the deal's financial details.
The new floor has only been open for about a month, but has been in high demand, said Jim Woodward, CEO of Elliot Health System.
The new unit is expected to make it easier—and less expensive—for Elliot Hospital patients to receive acute rehabilitation care.
Patients at Elliot had faced long waits to get rehab beds at other facilities, which were often 30 to 40 minutes away via private ambulance. Such moves are costly for the hospital and its patients, Woodward said.
Plans for a rehab floor took shape about a year and a half ago, when the 264-bed hospital began seeing a decline in inpatient admissions, as have many hospitals across the country, Woodward said.
“It's more convenient for the family and much more convenient for the patient,” Woodward said of the new floor. “There's greater continuity of care, reduced length of stay ... and frankly it's better care.”
Northeast Rehabilitation Network provides inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation services in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. The company operates various outpatient locations and three other rehabilitation hospitals, including a partnership with Southern New Hampshire Medical Center in Nashua.
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