New inpatient rehab unit opens at Northwestern Medicine Woodstock Hospital

A new inpatient rehabilitation unit opened at Northwestern Medicine Woodstock Hospital in March after relocating services from the McHenry hospital.

Centegra Health System discontinued most inpatient care at the Woodstock campus in 2017 after fewer patients generated losses that topped $30 million through the first three quarters of the fiscal year. Anyone who needed inpatient care and surgery were taken to the McHenry or Huntley hospitals after the changes.

However, the vision for inpatient care in Woodstock never lost sight. To serve the needs of the Woodstock community, a new $4 million, 22,000-square-foot unit was constructed with 22 beds for inpatient rehabilitation.

“[Inpatient behavioral health and rehabilitation health] services are unique to this hospital and do not exist in any other regional hospitals as part of our network,” Northwestern Woodstock Hospital President Matt Carlen said. “So we really ended up being the hub for those two services. It’s an investment in our community.”

The newly constructed unit provides a healing environment where patients receive comprehensive rehabilitation services to recover from physical disabilities, illnesses or injuries. Services include physical, occupational and speech therapy.

The unit includes a rehab gym that allows patients to receive three hours of therapy a day five to seven days out of the week.

“We also have an apartment in the therapy gym, and that’s where patients can practice everyday activities or activities of daily living, where they can practice in the kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, because we want our patients to be as independent as possible,” said Kris Germain, therapy program manager at the inpatient rehabilitation unit.

Most common diagnoses for patients in the unit, Germain said, include stroke, Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis, among others. The unit has 19 beds for rehab patients and 10 temporary beds for COVID-19 patients.

The unit currently is caring for two COVID-19 patients.

“The patients we’re seeing, they really need rehab,” said Dan Webel, manager of operations of the inpatient rehabilitation unit. “We’re seeing these patients who just need a lot of time to recover so that they’re able to go back home.”

The unit originally had planned to open in April but began operations in March to provide rehabilitation care for people recovering from COVID-19. The team added 10 additional beds for COVID-19 patients to the 19 beds in only six days, a feat that usually takes a month, Carlen said.

“One of the things that we saw as a need for our health system is there was a need for inpatient rehab for COVID-positive patients,” he said. “We were finding that some COVID-positive patients couldn’t go home, and they were discharged from the medical surgical bed that they needed a little bit more time.

“So we quickly converted part of this to be a COVID-positive inpatient rehab unit, which means that lowers our total capacity a little bit, but it’s the right thing to do for these patients.”

The Woodstock hospital provides an emergency department, laboratory services, medical imaging, inpatient behavioral health, outpatient behavioral health, inpatient rehabilitation and physicians’ offices.

A patient at the rehab unit is evaluated, which includes determining a patient’s goals. The program then is tailored to meet those goals, Germain said.

“We hear very frequently what a difference our program has made for them in terms of getting back home or because a lot of our patients that come to us, they’ve experienced a life-changing event, whether that’s a stroke or a serious injury,” Germain said. “So they’re very happy with our program.”