Lakewood and Fairview hospitals to start sharing services soon
By Kate Spirgen, Sun News
April 08, 2010, 10:15AM
LAKEWOOD - Lakewood and Fairview hospitals, under unified management since the beginning of the year, will begin coordinating care and sharing services soon. Major changes include the end of trauma and inpatient pediatric care at Lakewood Hospital and the implementation of a plan to make the hospital the site of acute rehabilitation for Cleveland’s West Side.
“We have to figure out a way to maximize our effectiveness and make access for patients better and we believe that this plan will continue to do that,” said Lakewood and Fairview Hospital President Jan Murphy at a community forum on March 31.
Lakewood Hospital, now a Level II trauma center, will not seek accreditation in the future, opting instead to send those patients, which accounted for less than 1 percent of all Lakewood Hospital emergency room visits last year, to Fairview Hospital. Lakewood’s emergency room will continue to offer full services to patients, but paramedics will take victims of serious or violent injuries to the Cleveland hospital, less than 4 miles away.
“We will stabilize any trauma patients who come in to Lakewood Hospital and then get them to the most appropriate trauma center for their injuries, which could be Fairview Hospital or MetroHealth,” Murphy said.
Trauma service will remain in place at Lakewood Hospital until the city reviews the proposal which Murphy expects to be completed by mid-June. Lakewood rents the hospital to the Cleveland Clinic through an agreement that requires the hospital to provide certain services.
Lakewood Hospital will also now be the acute rehabilitation center for patients on Cleveland’s West Side, providing physical and occupational therapy to get patients back to their daily lives after an injury or illness.
Administrators plan to expand Lakewood Hospital’s acute rehabilitation services department and relocate service from Fairview Hospital by the end of 2010, according to Murphy.
The space now used for inpatient pediatric care at Lakewood Hospital will be renovated to house a new geriatric psychiatry unit. The former geriatric psychiatry unit will then become the site of the expanded acute rehabilitation center, which will serve as the Center for Acute Rehabilitation on the west side.
These moves are a part of the hospital’s multi-million dollar Vision for Tomorrow strategic plan, components of which include all private patient rooms, preventative medicine and wellness programs and other renovations. One of the most prominent changes is a focus on “centers of excellence,” or specialized care units in several areas.
“We want to make sure that we’re here for many more decades to serve our community,” Murphy said at a LakewoodAlive community forum presentation. “We’re getting our care in a different way than we did five years ago or 10 years ago and we want to meet that patient need.”
The Lakewood Hospital Association Board of Trustees will maintain its oversight of inpatient pediatrics and trauma services even though they will be located at Fairview Hospital, said Fred DeGrandis, president and CEO of Cleveland Clinic regional hospitals.
“These changes will assure that center of excellence development is fully coordinated between Lakewood and Fairview hospitals,” he said, providing the example that by offering diabetes education support in family health centers, further patient services will be directed to Lakewood’s Diabetes Center and then to hospital services as needed, providing streamlined care to patients.
