Photo by Sarah Finnegan
A hallway inside the hospital, which Encompass Regional Vice President Terrence Brown said runs at about 90 percent occupancy rates.
The world of physical rehabilitation — from new technologies to new practices — has changed over the years, but Lakeshore Rehabilitation Hospital has endured and changed with it.
2018 marks the 45th anniversary of the Lakeshore Hospital, now operated by Encompass Health at 3800 Ridgeway Drive. The 100-bed facility admits about 2,700 patients for rehabilitation services each year. The campus on Ridgeway Drive is also home to the Lakeshore Foundation, which opened in 1984 and is home to Olympic and Paralympic team training, the U.S. Wheelchair Rugby team and a variety of fitness and recreation options that are accessible to members with physical disabilities and chronic health conditions.
Though the hospital has been in operation since 1973, its story begins back in the 1920s when Jefferson County set up the land along Lakeshore Drive as a tuberculosis treatment sanatorium. Author Anita Smith, who wrote “Sports Rehabilitation and the Human Spirit” on the story of the Lakeshore Foundation, said it was Dr. John Miller, a doctor at Spain Rehabilitation and UAB Rehabilitation Research and Training Center, who led the conversion of the tuberculosis sanatorium into a rehabilitation complex.
Miller’s plan for the facility, Smith wrote, was not only acute care for physical disabilities but also services to help patients return to their communities and their lives as much as possible. It was, at that time, a groundbreaking approach to long term treatment.
This led to the creation of the hospital and its sister facility, the Lakeshore Rehabilitation Facility, which offers job training and placement in conjunction with the hospital’s services. Some of the early jobs that Lakeshore helped its patients train for included switchboard operation, computer programming and microfilm technicians.
Early patients at the Lakeshore Hospital in the 1970s were most often treated for spinal cord injuries, limb amputations, orthopedic issues and strokes, Smith’s book says. Later the staff’s focus expanded to other disabilities such as cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, arthritis and sight problems.
Photo by Sarah Finnegan
Photos of the Jefferson County Tuberculosis Sanatorium, left, and Lakeshore Rehabilitation Hospital.
Jeff Underwood, the president of the Lakeshore Foundation, said focus has shifted away from traumatic injuries to chronic conditions over the years. Underwood attributed the change to increased safety awareness, such as wearing helmets or seat belts.
“We’ve learned how to live safer,” Underwood said.
The Encompass Health website for the hospital lists balance problems, brain injury, hip fracture, joint replacement, pain management and neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s, Lou Gehrig’s and Guillain-Barre syndrome among the other conditions treated at Lakeshore.
The beginning years of the rehabilitation hospital included the uphill battle of updating old and somewhat neglected buildings from the prior sanatorium, as well as showing the Birmingham area the advantages of this new model of rehabilitation care, Smith writes.
“It was in pretty bad shape,” Underwood said of the condition of the buildings when Lakeshore was preparing to open. “It had significantly gone downhill in terms of its condition and its upkeep.”
Underwood said the leaders of the Lakeshore Hospital created programs for former patients of the hospital to stay active after rehabilitation treatment, and these programs would grow and eventually lead to the creation of the foundation, separate from the hospital. However, the “two distinct missions” of both facilities still work tightly together, Underwood said, just as the hospital and rehab facility did in the 1970s.
“[Patients] can transition from hospital care to foundation participation and not suffer a decline” in the results of their rehab work, Underwood said.
The physical appearance of Lakeshore Hospital has changed over 45 years, with several updates and additions. Encompass Regional Vice President Terrence Brown, who previously worked at the Lakeshore Hospital as director of physical therapy, said changes have been made to keep up with new treatment options and what patients expect while at the hospital.
Brown said a new wing of the hospital recently opened and other renovations will continue through late 2019. The wing doesn’t increase Lakeshore Hospital’s overall number of beds but adds rooms so more patients can have private rooms while being treated. Brown said private rooms are now the expectation from many people.
Photo by Sarah Finnegan
A hallway inside the hospital, which Encompass Regional Vice President Terrence Brown said runs at about 90 percent occupancy rates.
Inside those rooms, Brown said rehabilitation looks different from when he started at Lakeshore in 1996. The average in-patient stay has dropped from about a month to about two weeks, which Brown said is the result of new technologies, more specialized training for staff and a push from healthcare and insurance organizations for shorter stays.
“A lot of that was brought about by advances in rehabilitation,” Brown said.
Particularly for patients who are elderly or have weakened immune systems, a lengthy hospital stay increases the risk of infection. Getting them back on their feet and returned to daily life quickly is safer in the long run.
“The less time they’re hospitalized, the better for them,” Brown said.
The hospital runs at about 90 percent occupancy rates, Brown said. He pointed to growth in overall patient numbers and the successful patients coming out of the outpatient rehab program as evidence of Lakeshore Hospital’s positive impact.
“Our focus and our goal of getting patients back home to the highest level of functional independence there can be,” Brown said.
“Lakeshore Hospital has been an institution in Homewood and in the Birmingham area for a long time, and a lot of people in this community have really benefited from the work of the hospital,” Underwood said.
