University of Chicago Medicine and Shirley Ryan AbilityLab have joined forces to bring the services and expertise of a premier rehabilitation hospital to patients of the academic health system, according to a media release.
Shirley Ryan AbilityLab will take on the clinical management of inpatient rehabilitation services at Ingalls Memorial Hospital in Harvey starting November 1. Over the next year, the alliance is expected to expand to inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation services in all clinical facilities at UChicago Medicine’s Hyde Park campus and later to Ingalls’ outpatient facilities in the south suburbs.
Physiatrists and others from Shirley Ryan AbilityLab will lead the administrative and clinical oversight of the programs. Current therapists and other staff-level employees will continue to be employed by Ingalls Memorial Hospital or, as the alliance expands over the next year, the University of Chicago Medical Center.
“This collaboration will allow the two organizations to work together and transfer knowledge and best practices in rehabilitation medicine, which will enhance the services we offer throughout our health system,” says Audre Bagnall, chief strategy officer and executive vice president for business development, in the release.
The arrangement is the latest alliance for the two leading health providers, which have a long history of successfully working with other organizations to expand care into more communities.
“Central to our mission is expanding our reach — locally, nationally and globally — so that patients have access to the best in rehabilitation care, with the greatest outcomes,” states Christine DeLeo, vice president, Strategic Alliances, Shirley Ryan AbilityLab. “We look forward to sharing our clinical and operating expertise first with Ingalls Memorial, which has expressed a deep commitment to building on current success and investing in its quality of rehabilitation services.”
Shirley Ryan AbilityLab has been ranked the “No. 1 Rehabilitation Hospital in America” by U.S. News & World Report every year since 1991. It has similar, effective collaborations with AMITA Health Rehabilitation Hospital Elk Grove Village and AMITA Health Adventist Medical Center La Grange, Silver Cross Hospital, Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center and Southern Illinois Healthcare. The organization has forged recent alliances in international geographies, as well. Anchored by its new flagship research hospital in Chicago’s Streeterville neighborhood, the organization operates nearly 40 sites of care around Illinois and beyond.
UChicago Medicine, based in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood, sees patients in 45 locations around Chicago and Northwest Indiana. The academic health system added Ingalls Memorial and the Harvey hospital’s outpatient sites and urgent care facilities to its network in 2016. The most recent U.S. News report ranked UChicago Medicine as the No. 2 hospital in Illinois, per the release.
[Source(s): University of Chicago Medical Center, Newswise]