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HealthSouth Rehabilitation Hospital of Altoona is working toward its ultimate goal of achieving “national prominence” by operating world-class inpatient and outpatient treatment programs, according to CEO Scott Filler. The hospital treats a variety of inpatient conditions, but specializes in stroke, brain and spinal cord injuries.

In fact, in 2006, HealthSouth Altoona became the country’s first triple-certified disease-specific rehabilitation hospital when its stroke, brain injury and spinal cord injury programs were certified by The Joint Commission (TJC), Filler explains.

According to the hospital, TJC is the nation’s oldest accrediting organization in healthcare. “The Joint Commission is dedicated to continuously improving the safety and quality of the nation’s healthcare through voluntary certification,” the organization states.

HealthSouth’s voluntary TJC certification is only one initiative developed to enhance quality and improve patient satisfaction. According to Filler, the entire organization operates by its employee philosophy of “One Vision,” which is focused on improving inpatient and outpatient programs. “One Vision is built around the talents of the hospital’s employees,” he explains. “The basic tenets of the philosophy have staff focusing their efforts on continual program enhancements and improvements, patient satisfaction, patient outcomes, and hospital and clinic cleanliness.

“Our leadership focuses on supporting staff efforts with resources and tools to aid in the quest of national prominence.”

Since implementing the program, Filler adds, the hospital has achieved at least 95 percent satisfaction ratings among inpatients, he says. In addition, the hospital has not had a single outpatient in one-and-a-half years refuse to recommend its services, he says.

Measuring Success
The hospital also utilizes a comprehensive patient-satisfaction measurement tool to ensure accurate reports of the overall experience and outcome of each patient. The Uniform Data System (UDS) for medical rehabilitation is a widely used tool in the rehabilitation industry, HealthSouth explains. 

“This system measures the effectiveness of our hospital’s rehabilitation programs by evaluating and tracking a patient’s functional status upon admission, discharge and post-discharge to document the level of disability and to assess the effectiveness of rehabilitation,” the hospital explains. “UDS also allows HealthSouth to benchmark its rehabilitation hospitals against regional and national performance data.”

Innovative Services
HealthSouth Altoona operates six satellite locations throughout Pennsylvania, all offering a comprehensive list of outpatient services, including physical, occupational, speech and vision therapy, sports medicine, general orthopedics and behavioral medicine.

“The hospital’s outpatient breadth of services also includes a pain clinic with a dually board-certified physician in pain management and anesthesia, five sites with aquatic therapy, a clinic that specializes in the treatment of arthritic conditions and a dynamic return-to-work program for local businesses known as WordPerfect,” Filler explains.

This program typically provides a combination of physical and occupational therapy – sometimes speech language pathology therapy – and always case management services to expedite return-to-work for nearly 200 employers in the central Pennsylvania region.  

New Developments
Filler says the hospital also organizes teams devoted to treating cardiac and orthopedic conditions, and is currently developing a neurological team that will specialize in treating patients with Parkinson’s disease.

“The hospital is looking to have its Neurological Center of Excellence programs recertified by TJC later this summer, and will also seek certification at that time of its cardiac program,” Filler explains.

“The hospital is also looking to partner its program technology with university-based outcome research,” he adds. “Primary discussions are also in progress for the hospital to participate in research studies to show how psychiatrist-based pharmacological initiatives impact patient outcomes,” he says.

Tools for Success
In addition to a talented clinical staff, HealthSouth Altoona enjoys access to key tools and systems “to aid in outcome enhancement,” Filler says.

“Some of these tools include the AutoAmbulator, which is exclusive to Healthsouth, the Bioness H200 and L300, and the REO – all of which are exclusive to the market – and Vital Stim technologies, to name some of the most-impressive state-of-the-art technologies available in the rehabilitation industry.”

According to Filler, the AutoAmbulator and Bioness L300 focus on lower extremity functional return, while the Bioness H200 and REO focus mainly on upper extremity function return. The Vital Stim system focuses on the return of the swallowing function.

High Rankings
HealthSouth Corp. operates more than 1,000 locations across the country, and Filler says the Altoona operation is consistently one of its highest-ranked locations. In fact, the hospital was named HealthSouth’s 2007 Outstanding Performance in Clinical Excellence, and was also No. 1 in patient outcomes in the Northeast, Filler adds.

Additional recognitions include:

• 2004 Nursing Team of the Year;
• 2006 HealthSouth Stroke Center of Excellence;
• Top-5 Clinical Ranking in the HealthSouth system from 2001 to 2007;
• Top-100 businesses in Central Pennsylvania from 2001 to 2007;
• 2007 outstanding performance in clinical excellence; and
• 2007 No. 1 in patient outcomes in the Northeast region.