St. John's Rehab Hospital specializes in rehabilitation efforts that focus

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For more than 70 years, St. John’s Rehab Hospital in Ontario has provided top-notch services to patients by offering a holistic approach to specialized rehabilitation care. The hospital was founded by the sisters of St. John the Divine, following their experience of running a specialty surgical hospital for women.

After several years of operating that hospital, the Sisters  realized that many patients were being discharged before they had fully recovered. The Sisters wisely decided to open a new hospital, focused on convalescent care for patients who were not quite ready to be discharged home.

Continued Focus
Today, the hospital continues to operate by these principles, specializing in rehabilitation efforts that focus on being active and making lifestyle changes to prevent further treatment. According to CEO Malcolm Moffat, the hospital offers the only burn rehabilitation program in Ontario, and the only transplant rehabilitation program in Canada.

In addition, the hospital offers 61 beds devoted to musculoskeletal rehabilitation, 31 beds for stroke and neurological patients and 25 beds for trauma patients.
Extensive Experience

After a 25-year career in healthcare, Moffat became interested in rehabilitation while leading the trauma program for an acute care teaching hospital. “At the acute care hospital, we had major issues moving patients from acute care into rehab, so I became very involved in improving the continuum of care,” he says. The acute care hospitals were also concerned with patients being readmitted for the same issues, because the underlying health problems were not being adequately addressed.

For example, if a patient has diabetes but suffers a heart attack, he or she will first be treated for the immediate problem. But placing the patient into a rehabilitation program after the initial treatment will also address disease management and prevention, Moffat explains.

“We’re focused on secondary prevention and teaching people how to manage chronic diseases better, so they won’t have a second episode,” he says. “This is a real revolution in healthcare, the sign of a healthy, advanced society.”

Patient Satisfaction
Traditionally, a primary total joint replacement patient’s typical stay in the hospital was 21 days, but St. John’s revamped  its rehabilitation program to reduce the time to seven to 10 days. This change in practice allows people to return to their communities sooner.

“We have worked with our acute care partners to develop  the literature and research  to show how patient outcomes are just as good if they stay for a shorter amount of time,” he says. “We have completely revamped our program, by increasing the amount of therapy we give every day, and by instituting a seven-day-per-week therapy program, rather than our traditional Monday-through-Friday schedule.”

St. John’s increased staffing to provide these additional services, and ensured that patients are aware of this change. “We found that setting the expectations of the patient in advance is very important,” Moffat explains. “Once the orthopedic surgeons reinforced that message, patients were ready to accept it.”

To measure patient satisfaction results, the hospital contracts with an external research firm to perform  surveys, and has seen very positive results. “We’ve had a satisfaction rate of 92 percent or better on a regular basis,” Moffat asserts. This rate has been consistent over the past several years, and has not dropped as a result of the changing practice.

Changing the length of stay is especially important when funding issues come into play. “Our funding in Canada is based on how much tax revenue can be raised, but society as a whole is averse to increased taxes,” Moffat says. “But, they want more services from us at the same time. It’s a challenge to balance the demand for resources that we have available to us while providing the best services possible.”

A Holistic Approach
St. John’s hospital administrators know the important elements of rehabilitation extend beyond traditional medicine. “Patients need fresh air and exercise in order to recover,” Moffat says. “We have built walking paths outside, and marked those so people can see how much progress they can make on a day-to-day basis,” Moffat explains, noting that the facility sits on 25 acres of property.

The hospital provides a holistic approach to care, treating physical, emotional and spiritual needs, Moffat says. “We still have six sisters on staff at the hospital who visit each patient,” he says. “Many people are happy to have a friendly person with whom to talk, but aren’t necessarily interested in talking about spiritual issues. However, there are a large number of patients who want to talk about what’s happened to them from a spiritual perspective. The Sisters enable these discussions, which can be an integral part of the recovery process.”

In recent years, St. John’s has seen increased interest in and recognition of the benefits of rehabilitation hospitals in Canada. “These facilities are not only the places where the elderly go anymore,” Moffat says. “We’re getting many different types of patients these days, because we have been working with many major acute care hospitals to help them see the benefits of rehabilitation for their patients.

“They’re starting to see that people can move through acute care facilities more quickly if they go through the rehabilitation process.”