Thomas Health System announced Thursday its plans to partner with local Stonerise Healthcare on a $17 million post-acute care facility in South Charleston that will allow the hospital system to create a model of care coordination that will be the first of its kind in West Virginia.
Dan Lauffer, president and CEO of Thomas, said the partnership will allow the hospital system to coordinate a transitional-care model that will better serve patients' health care needs, help avoid unnecessary hospital re-admissions and promote economic growth for South Charleston.
"This will allow all of this care to occur in one setting, and I think that has a lot of appeal for patients who are thinking, 'Who is the provider in my community that can best coordinate my care?' Families think the same way," Lauffer said. "It becomes a very stressful time for families when they start thinking about things like post-acute care - patients who can't go home because they can't yet take care of themselves, who have to go to a long-term care facility for a while - this provides us an opportunity to coordinate that care a lot more closely than we ever have."
The facility will be constructed on the Thomas Memorial Hospital campus, and the system and Stonerise hope to begin the project in the summer, although they are awaiting approval from the West Virginia Health Care Authority, according to Larry Pack, a managing partner with Stonerise.
"This is the first model of health care in West Virginia that will bring all those pieces together and drive them forward," said David Gardner, managing director of Stonerise, a Charleston-based company that operates 15 elder-care and rehab facilities across the state.
"This is not just Thomas Health System, this is not just Stonerise - this is home-health services, as well. We bring the patient through the door, and we retain accountability for that patient all the way to, and including, home."
The proposed facility will be approximately 71,000 square feet and will specialize in six post-acute care arenas: pulmonary, cardiac telemetry, joint-replacement rehabilitation, wound care, cancer/palliative care and long-term care.
The new facility could create as many as 100 new jobs, and South Charleston Mayor Frank Mullins said he hopes Thomas' expansion can mean more economic opportunity for the rest of the city.
"Thomas has been the economic engine in the West end of South Charleston for a long time and, ever since I've been in office, I've preached progressive and modern, and I think Thomas is taking the lead in that," Mullins said. "Hopefully, there will be some domino effect here."
Dr. Matthew Upton, chief medical officer and chief medical information officer for the system, said he is hopeful the partnership will eliminate gaps in patient care that can be harmful to recovery or result in unnecessary medical costs.
"When it's in our system, we know it's going to continue, because it's going from the acute care side to the post-acute care side, and all the protocols and things we have in place for that patient will continue," he said. "Once that patient is discharged, it can continue with the home-health facility - it's all mapped out so there are no gaps. Traditionally, that's where the problems happen. Someone moves from one facility to another, and there's a gap. This model allows us to remove those gaps and move forward."
Reach Lydia Nuzum at lydia.nuzum@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-5189 or follow @lydianuzum on Twitter.