Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC Opens Pediatric Inpatient Rehabilitation Unit

PITTSBURGH, PA - November 18, 2013 - Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC Rehabilitation Institute will open an eight-bed pediatric inpatient rehabilitation unit this week. The unit will provide continuity of care as well as maximize the health and functional outcomes of children after injury, illness or surgery.

The Children's Hospital inpatient rehabilitation unit will be located at The Children's Home & Lemieux Family Center, less than one mile from Children's main campus on Penn Avenue in Lawrenceville. The unit will be called the Children's Hospital Rehabilitation Unit (CHRU).

While the CHRU is not located inside Children's Hospital, it is a Children's Hospital unit and will raise Children's licensed bed count from 296 to 304. The CHRU will operate under Children's policies and procedures, be staffed by Children's employees, and physicians from all specialties at Children's will be available for consultation.

"The CHRU will bring together a team of experts from multiple disciplines to offer advanced therapeutic treatments for our patients," said Amy Houtrow, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., medical director of Children's Hospital's Rehabilitation Institute and of the CHRU. "We plan to provide continuity of care to children and adolescents needing intensive rehabilitation services, and to provide high-quality, comprehensive rehabilitation services to pediatric patients. One of the benefits to patients will be the ready access they will have to every medical and surgical subspecialty at Children's."

Candidates appropriate for the CHRU include children and adolescents with acquired brain injury; amputation; disabling neurological conditions; medically and/or surgically complex conditions with weakness after a prolonged illness or hospitalization; polytrauma, or multiple trauma; and spinal cord injury. Every referred patient from Children's will be evaluated by a rehabilitation coordinator, who will give the family other options if the child is not determined to be appropriate for the CHRU.

The CHRU will be staffed by experts in these fields:

• Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology
• Behavioral Psychology and Neuropsychology
• Care Management
• Child Life and Recreational Therapy
• Occupational Therapy
• Physical Therapy
• Recreational Therapy
• Rehabilitation Coordination
• Social Work
• Special Education

"This is exciting for Children's because we will now have the opportunity to see pediatric patients through their entire hospital journey; all the way to their return to home, school and the community, which will improve continuity of care," Dr. Houtrow said.

Location information:

Children's Hospital Rehabilitation Unit
5324 Penn Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15224

For more information on the CHRU, please call 412-692-9800 or visit www.chp.edu/chru.

Andrea Kunicky, 412-692-6254, andrea.kunicky@chp.edu  

Marc Lukasiak, 412-692-7919, marc.lukasiak@chp.edu