Boca Raton -based Promise Healthcare, Inc. Continues Growth With Promise Hospital Of Fort Myers

Boca Raton-based Promise team arrive at Promise Hospital for Grand Opening

Promise Healthcare, the fifth largest long-term acute care hospital (LTACH) company in the country, expands its industry presence to 19 facilities in
eight states with its first hospital built and managed on Florida’s Gulf Coast to operate as the only LTACH in Lee County. The $20+ million, 56,000-square-foot, 60-bed, all-private-room LTACH will serve physicians and their patients living and working in Fort Myers, Lehigh Acres, Cape Coral, Estero and Bonita Springs as well as communities in Collier County and Charlotte County. When fully staffed, Promise’s entry into the Lee County healthcare continuum will create more than 200 new jobs for the area.

At its official ribbon-cutting ceremony that included the first guided tours of the facility, Promise Healthcare corporate senior management and leadership from the new Promise Hospital of Fort Myers were joined by area government, Lee Memorial Health System executives, management of surrounding hospitals, physicians and other healthcare professionals as well as business and community leaders.

“Everyone at Promise is extremely pleased to be officially joining the Lee County
healthcare continuum to support the Lee Memorial Healthcare System and providers in surrounding communities,” noted Promise Healthcare CEO Peter R. Baronoff during opening ceremonies. “With Promise’s clinical ‘quality’ scores and patient satisfaction rates that outperform national averages, we look forward to filling a critical void by delivering a specialized long-term high-acuity hospital and active collaboration to keep the Lee healthcare continuum peerless for southern Gulf Coast residents.”

Promise Healthcare President Richard A. Gold acknowledged Fort Myers city officials and the entire Lee Memorial Healthcare organization for its immediate embrace and collaboration in helping the make Promise Hospital’s entry into the community a historic one for Promise, the Lee County healthcare community and the community-at-large. “When a community has two leading healthcare organizations teaming up together that are genuinely committed to delivering the most quality, compassionate patient care and cultivating talent, everyone triumphs. Such collaboration delivers a dynamic synergistic approach in the patient continuum of care that is founded in optimal personalized healthcare excellence.”

Knowing that family members and friends are important to the healing process, “it will be comforting to both patients, their physicians and those who visit frequently to have state-of-the-art LTACH services within a short drive,” said Gold who is celebrating his 10-year anniversary with Promise in his 35-year healthcare career, working along side CEO Peter R. Baronoff and its leadership team through its aggressive growth period. Today the closest operating LTACHs are one hour or more away, and that becomes challenging for friends and loved ones to visit on a regular basis.
Promise LTACH Affords ‘Extended Time’ To Hasten Recovery For Critically Sick Patients

According to Promise Hospital of Fort Myers CEO Patrick G. Ryan who has been in the LTACH industry for 25 years and with Promise Healthcare for four years, the new facility specializes in high acuity long-term hospital care, with an average stay of 25 days, for patients suffering from the most complex of medical conditions.

At Promise Hospital critically ill patients with multi-organ conditions are afforded ‘the benefit of extended time’ to effectively hasten recovery and achieve personalized goals,” continued Ryan. The hospital’s distinctive LTAC environment provides acute medical care and aggressive therapy services for patients with unresolved, acute, or catastrophic illnesses, as well as multi-organ disease processes who require an average length of stay of 25 days or more. Promise specializes in acute respiratory/pulmonary care (including ventilator management and weaning), infectious disease management (including long-term IV antibiotics), advanced wound management, complex medical management and treatment for multi-organ failure and post-surgical complications.

Ryan added that patients can be admitted from almost any setting for most illnesses or injuries that require a longer hospital recovery period and require physical, occupational or respiratory therapies and/or complex wound care. In most cases, patients are transferred from intensive care units (ICUs), direct observation units (DOUs), general medical and surgical beds in short-term acute care (STAC) hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, assisted living facilities or from their home or physician’s office.

A Look Inside Promise Hospital Of Fort Myers

The new hospital in Fort Myers is modeled after Promise’s successful custom design/builds of Promise LTACHs in Bossier City and Vidalia in Louisiana and The Villages and, most recently, Miami Lakes in Florida. As with all Promise new builds, Gold reported that special design and patient care nuances were incorporated into the Fort Myers facility to give it a cheerful Florida Gulf Coast ‘sense of place’ and provide convenience for physicians and their patients.

The hospital features all private rooms with 60 telemetry beds for patient monitoring while in rooms or during mobile transport and private showers; 52 med/surg beds; an eight-bed Intensive Care Unit (ICU), four isolation rooms and a fully outfitted operating room suite with pre- and post-op anesthesia areas and full sterilization capabilities available to physicians to use should their patients admitted to Promise require them to perform interim surgical procedures during their hospital stay. Patient rooms feature ‘Teknoflor’ which has imbedded Nano-Silver technology that is anti-microbial and anti-fungal and provides other safety features that help to minimize potential patient and staff slipping/falling incidents.

Also onsite are two dialysis stations; a wound care suite for the treatment of patients with complex conditions, including Stage III – IV pressure ulcers, non-healing surgical wounds, infected surgical wounds, ulcerations of the skin caused by complications of diabetes and peripheral neuropathy and a full-service respiratory program team of respiratory therapists who manage treatment for patients with complex respiratory needs such as ventilator management, COPD, emphysema, pneumonia and bronchitis.

The hospital’s Physical and Occupational Therapy Gym — which features a full kitchen, complete with working stove, sink and dishwasher and appliances such as a washer and dryer–is designed for therapists to help patients enhance their independence level by training them in cooking, personal hygiene, grooming, and other activities of daily living. It is where patients work to regain strength and endurance as well as interact with other patients to enhance motivation.
Under the direction of board-certified physiatrists, up to three hours of therapy is provided per patient per day.

There is also a full-service in-house pharmacy, a Physicians Lounge And Dictation Area that provides physicians with a comfortable, functional private setting while charting or dictating their medical records; a private residence-style physician room with bed, private bathroom, and amenities that provides physicians with a respite during late evening calls that require the need for a physician to remain on-site; a family consulting room for private consultations with physicians; a multi-media room is available for training and education instruction; and a cafeteria is open to physicians, staff, and visitors. SpeechWrite dictation solutions can help you work more efficiently.

All nursing staff is ACLS certified using a primary RN nursing model for all patients and adherence to strict compliance of benchmark patient safety measures with a 2-3:1 patient to nurse ratio in its I.C.U. and 5:1 in its med/surg care. Its Main Nurses’ Stations feature a complex, integrated computer system that increases security and the communication and efficiency between departments.

Promise Hospital of Fort Myers is located at 3050 Champion Ring Road, Fort Myers, FL 33905. For more information, admissions, and physician referrals and affiliation, call Anne Marie Meadows at 239-313-2905 or visit www.promisefortmyers.com. For employment opportunities, contact Doreen Flannigan at 239-313-2900 or via fax 239-939-4811 or email Doreen.Flannigan@promisehealthcare.com.