By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
A brand-new rehab hospital in Elwood, Kansas is helping bring rehabilitation services to the region that have never been provided before.
Clearsky of Elwood and St. Joseph opened its doors last week to patients in need of intensive rehab care, such as after surgery.
CEO of the clinic Deanna Lamb says the need for this care is largely needed because this service has never been available here
"Patients who are needing inpatient rehabilitation are leaving the local area and going north to the Omaha Lincoln or south into Kansas City to try to obtain these same services," Lamb tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. "So, we're able to keep patients closer to home."
Clearsky provides occupational therapy, speech therapy, physical therapy to up to 30 patients to help get them back to where they were before their accident.
Lamb says the rehab provided is intensive rehabilitation care
"So, we have speech therapy, physical therapy, occupational therapy that we provide to the patients, patients will have a minimum of three hours of therapy per day or 900 minutes per week," Lamb explains. "And that's what gives that intensive specialized therapy."
Lamb says a typical stay for a patient would be 12 to 14 days with the goal being to get that patient home quicker than they would with at home care.
Lamb says the goal is to get patients the care they need so they can go home, but eventually for those that do need more help the clinic will have outpatient therapy.
"So, some of those patients that receive that intensive therapy while they were in house will be able to come back and do outpatient therapy with us, if it's needed," Lamb says. "The goal is to get patients home, hopefully, without the need for outpatient but there will be some that will need outpatient therapy and we'll be able to provide that."