FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Violeta Peters, R.N., M.A.
Chief Executive Officer of AcuteCare Health System
732-923-5037
SPECIALTY HOSPITALS’ NEW VIDEO CAPTURES ESSENCE
OF COORDINATED, PERSONALIZED DELIVERY OF LONG TERM ACUTE CARE
Highly Specialized Setting Gives New Hope for Critically Ill Patients
LAKEWOOD, NJ, July 16, 2007 — Inspiring stories of healing and recovery are told
in a new video by AcuteCare Health System Specialty Hospitals that illustrates
how its coordinated delivery of long term acute care is bringing hope for
renewed health into the lives of critically ill patients and their families.
The recently released video titled, “Where Caring and Healing Go Hand in Hand,” takes a close-up look at ACHS’s two “hospital-within-a-hospital” facilities — Specialty Hospital at Kimball, located within Lakewood-based Kimball Medical Center, and Specialty Hospital at Monmouth, located within Long Branch-based Monmouth Medical Center.
Patients, family members, physicians, nurses and other health care professionals are featured in the engaging, 15-minute video, which focuses on how both 25-bed Specialty Hospitals are uniquely designed for patients with complex medical conditions that require hospital-based care extending beyond 25 days.
“By sharing our philosophy of care through this video, we hope to capture the essence of Specialty Hospitals’ special kind of caring and full spectrum of treatment programs,” says Howard Lebowitz, M.D., chief medical officer of ACHS, the Lakewood-based company that is considered New Jersey’s leader in developing long term acute care hospitals (LTACHs).
“As one patient most appreciatively has described us, we are ‘an oasis,’ where patients find a proven combination of high-tech medical care and a culture of caring that is unmatched in this highly specialized setting that is emerging along the health care continuum,” Dr. Lebowitz says.
Its two Specialty Hospitals are among eight fully licensed LTACHs in New Jersey that are currently in operation and required to meet the same stringent state and federal regulations as acute care hospitals.
Dr. Lebowitz explains that Specialty Hospitals’ exceptional culture of caring centers around the fact that a hospital-based medical group provides patients with individualized care and attention throughout the entire day at each of its dedicated facilities. “As a result, our full-time physicians, nurses, therapists and other caregivers at each Specialty Hospital just don’t see patients once a day, but throughout the day,” he says. “Treatment plans can then be adjusted according to the dynamic changes in their critical, medical progress.”
LeeAnn Harmon, R.N., CLNC, external case manager for Specialty Hospitals, emphasizes the importance of offering care and support to the entire family. “Part of our goal is to take care of all family members because they also need counseling and ways to find relief from stress during these difficult times.”
“What distinguishes us is that we provide such a tremendous amount of personalized care to patients and families,” adds Specialty Hospitals social worker Debra Foley, M.S.W., L.S.W. “On a daily basis, they can come to us with any question or concern, any time, day or night, and we make sure they’re attended to.”
There is no better measure of Specialty Hospitals’ commitment to care than the compelling portraits of recovery that are the video’s focal point. In their own words, family members describe how Specialty Hospital provided the ideal environment to help their loved ones overcome unbeatable odds to survive life-threatening health conditions — the majority breaking free from ventilator assistance to breathe on their own once again.
Transcending all differences in medical circumstances and conditions, age and gender, family and personal history, these patients have achieved a quality of life not believed possible before their extended stay at Specialty Hospital. One patient’s daughter, who also is a nurse, best sums up their collective sentiments: “Specialty Hospital saved my father’s life, and that’s worth everything.”
To obtain a copy of the video, available as a DVD, call Specialty Hospital at Monmouth at 732-923-5037. For more information, visit AcuteCare Health System’s Web site at www.acutecarehs.com.
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AcuteCare Health System, LLC, is a privately owned corporation formed in 2002 to establish and manage long term acute care hospitals (LTACHs). An LTACH (pronounced L-tack) provides diagnostic and medical treatment and rehabilitation to patients whose conditions are medically complex and require an average length-of-stay of 25 days or more.
Although ACHS’s Specialty Hospital at Monmouth and Specialty Hospital at Kimball are located within major medical centers, they are independent entities that offer the benefits of a smaller, more individualized hospital setting, combined with such life-support services as ventilator weaning, complex wound care, parenteral nutrition, respiratory and cardiac monitoring, and dialysis.
Patients typically are referred to the Specialty Hospitals through physician, nurse, case manager or social worker referral — from an intensive care unit.
For more information about Specialty Hospital at Monmouth, call 732-923-5037, and Specialty Hospital at Kimball, call 732-942-3597. Visit its Web site at www.acutecarehs.com .