Elevating Rehabilitation Care to Help Patients Reach New Heights

In 2021 Adventist HealthCare Rehabilitation kicked off a new era of local care for patients in Montgomery County with the opening of Adventist HealthCare Rehabilitation White Oak inside Adventist HealthCare White Oak Medical Center. Accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF), the new rehab center brought inpatient physical, occupational and speech therapy services closer to home for community members recovering from major injuries or surgeries.

Now, we are focused on growing our services and enhancing the care we provide so we can help generations of Montgomery County residents reach their functional potential and achieve the quality of life they want.

"We’re always looking for ways to grow so we can ensure we can serve the needs of the patients in Montgomery County," said Rob Grange, vice president of Post-Acute Care Services and administrator at Adventist HealthCare Rehabilitation White Oak. "We're very proud of our outcomes. We have very strong safety measures, and our fall rates are very low. Our patient satisfaction is also higher than our competitors."

People First

Adventist HealthCare Rehabilitation’s outcomes reflect our team's dedication to ensuring every patient receives high-quality, personalized care.

For 2024, nearly 85% of people served at the White Oak location reported they were likely to recommend the facility to others. In addition, our key quality measures were in or near the top quartile nationally. These include:

• Community discharge: The number of people served who were sent home rather than to other facilities was higher than those of competitors.
• Functional improvements: This includes gains in mobility, walking and self-care.

World-Class Care

Adventist HealthCare Rehabilitation is the only acute rehabilitation center in Montgomery County. Our dedicated team works collaboratively with board-certified physicians and subspecialists, and our therapists customize care to each person’s needs. In addition to seeing a physician every day, people served at Adventist HealthCare Rehabilitation White Oak work daily with:

• Physical therapists who are experts in anatomy and movement and prescribe exercises to improve strength, range of motion and mobility
• Occupational therapists who help improve or relearn skills for activities of daily living, such as grooming, dressing, eating and bathing, through exercises and the use of adaptive equipment
• Speech-language pathologists who help with issues involving speech, voice, swallowing and aphasia, which can result from brain injury, spinal cord injury, stroke and other conditions

Rehabilitation programs are available for a range of conditions, including:

• Amputations
• Orthopedic injuries and surgeries
• Spinal cord injuries
• Sports injuries
• Stroke
• Traumatic brain injuries

Going Above and Beyond for Safety, Comfort and Convenience

The 42-bed facility at White Oak is located on the sixth and seventh floors of the south tower of Adventist HealthCare White Oak Medical Center, allowing for seamless transfers for patients coming from this facility.

"We're a hospital within a hospital, which also gives patients easy access to our services," Rob said. "If someone needs imaging, has an appointment for wound care or requires any other services, they don’t need to travel to another facility for those things."

The White Oak facility also offers private rooms, state-of-the-art equipment and personal touches to make the facility feel more like home. Features include:

• Ceiling track systems in every room to help people safely navigate to their private bathrooms
• Inspirational artwork including paintings done by artists with disabilities who are part of the Mouth and Foot Painters Association
• Natural lighting throughout the facility
• Spacious, comfortable day rooms that offer kitchens, eating spaces, televisions and computers
• Two therapy gyms with the latest equipment, with one reserved for patients who require fewer distractions and less stimulation

The team has also expanded the telemonitoring system to ensure people served remain safe while in our care.

"We have increased our camera usage to maximize the benefits of the telemonitoring program," Rob said. "This has helped our rate of falls become nearly half that of the national average."

"There is a minute-by-minute, 24-hour report from the telemonitoring system that we use to gauge a person's behavior and safety. We can track how often we must talk to them or send someone in to help," Rob said. "We problem solve to see what we can do to keep each person safe in the most supportive but least restrictive way possible."

Another popular program is the facility dog program. Adventist HealthCare Rehabilitation has partnered with Canine Companions, a national organization that trains service and facility dogs and matches them with healthcare professionals and people with disabilities. Rehabilitation psychologist Heather Tropiano, PsyD, works with Peru IV, a trained half-Labrador and half-golden retriever, to offer comfort while helping people recover."

"Peru is often incorporated into daily treatments," Rob said. "She makes a big impact on the people we serve."

The facility dog program has been so successful at White Oak that Adventist HealthCare Rehabilitation looks forward to adding a facility dog to the team at our Rockville location in 2025.

Meeting the Highest Standards

Patients also can rest assured that all specialty programs at Adventist HealthCare Rehabilitation meet rigorous international and national standards for quality as established by CARF and The Joint Commission.

"We will continue to find ways to grow and meet the needs of patients in Montgomery County, including expanding our number of beds in the near future," Rob said. "Our goal is always to deliver world-class care."

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