DUBLIN, Ga. — A $660,000 investment from the Hospital Corporation of America allowed Fairview Park Hospital to renovate and expand their physical rehabilitation services in June.
Rehab Director Austin Guinn said before the unit grew to an entire floor in the hospital, they were at 90% capacity and constantly were full.
"A bigger opportunity to serve more people and that capacity restraint has really been alleviated," Guinn said.
They tackled the problem with a 25% expansion that added five more beds. They now have 20 beds, instead of 15.
"Over a year - (with) five more beds - you could admit a hundred-plus more patients in a calendar year," Guinn said.
It's added more beds, so people like Barbara Daniels can stay close to home. She lives in Dodge County, and had surgery for a broken hip eight days ago.
"They work with me on almost all equipment and now I've progressed to standing on a mat throwing a ball," Daniels said.
She does her rehab therapy in the new state-of-the-art occupational therapy gym. The rehab unit now has two gyms, one for physical therapy, and one for occupational therapy.
They also added a second nurses station to get to patients even faster,
"We have patients that we really promote being up in chairs and things like that and with the promotion of patients being up and out of bed, you have the risk of falls," Guinn said. "So, we utilize things like bed alarms, chair alarms. But I just thought it's very, very important that we have a nurses' station so that nurses are seated and set up in closer proximity to the new rooms."
He said that's helped create twelve new jobs at the hospital. It was also important for them to renovate the rooms to make them more accessible to patients.
"(They have) full walk-in showers, so even patients that are wheelchair-bound can roll into the shower," Guinn said. "We have flipped down shower chairs that they can transfer back and forth to so it's just making it easier on the patients while they're here."
It's created a home away from home for Daniels, who's happy she gets to heal locally, instead of going to another city further away.
"Because I don't drive, and somebody would have to have taken me," Daniels said. "They would have taken off from work and took me where I needed to go. I love that they kept me here. I do, I begged to be here."
Guinn said they wanted to create a community environment on the rehab floor to make it as similar of a home experience for patients as possible. By getting them out of their rooms, and into the gyms, they're also able to interact with other patients and inspire one another.
"They're able to see other patients and interact with them and say 'Hey, well I was in your situation two weeks ago and look where I am at now,'" Guinn said.
Fairview Park Hospital said they serve over 10 counties in the surrounding area.