Partnership Brings More Healthcare Options to Community

Two Healthcare Leaders — Promise Hospital and LDS Hospital — Team Up to Provide Salt Lake’s Only Long-Term Acute Care Hospital

LDS Hospital and Promise Hospital of Salt Lake are joining forces to provide the only long-term acute care facility in the Salt Lake Valley. The new, state-of-the-art facility will be located within LDS Hospital. It’s a unique partnership that ensures a higher level of care and an added layer of safety for patients who need acute medical attention.

The two organizations will celebrate with a ribbon cutting Sept. 8, 11:30 a.m., at Promise Hospital of Salt Lake. Enter just north of the LDS Hospital Emergency Room, at approximately 8th Avenue and D Street.

“We’re very pleased to welcome Promise Hospital to our campus,” said Jim Sheets, administrator of LDS Hospital. “This collaboration will lead to better healthcare in the Salt Lake area.”

Promise administrator Linda Hook agrees: “Our patients will benefit from the high caliber of specialized care Promise offers and also the extended range of excellent services available at LDS Hospital,” she said.

Promise Hospital of Salt Lake will have 41 patient beds, including 12 “high-observation” rooms for the most seriously ill patients. The hospital is a long-term acute care (LTAC) facility, which treats patients who are stable but need hospital-level care for an extended time. Most patients stay an average of 25 days or more before being discharged to an acute rehabilitation center, skilled nursing facility, assisted living center, or home.

LTAC patients often have complex, acute and chronic conditions due to catastrophic illness or severe injury. Many need ventilator weaning, artificial airway care, dialysis, complex heart monitoring, wound care, infectious disease management, or long-term antibiotic regimens.

Promise has been open at another location in Salt Lake City for eight years, but the move to LDS Hospital brings several advantages:

Rooms Designed for Patients

• The new Promise Hospital feels more like home, with warm colors, furnishings, and tiled showers.
• Rooms are larger, allowing patients to move more freely — an essential part of recovery.
• The hospital has more amenities, like a private TV for each patient and a comfortable gathering area for family members.
• There’s a quiet, secure “high-observation” unit, an area similar to an ICU where patients get closer monitoring and a calmer place to heal.
• Beautiful views of the Capitol and Wasatch Mountains from patient rooms; easy access to a patio where patients and families can enjoy sunshine and fresh air.

Specialized Care

• Promise works with many physician specialists in an attempt to keep patients with the doctors they already know and trust.
• Daily visits from hospitalists — physicians who specialize in acute care.
• Patients can receive dialysis in the comfort of their bed.
• Rehabilitation center with the latest equipment.
• An expert staff of pharmacists; nurse practitioners; occupational, physical, speech, and respiratory therapists; wound-care specialists; case managers; social workers; and a dietitian.
• Everyone is Advanced Cardiac Life Support certified.

Better Technology

• A new communications system ensures faster response to patient calls, while reducing the noise and disruption of overhead calls.
• Patient rooms and physical therapy space have new built-in technology, so that physicians and nurses can provide necessary care quickly and easily, even in emergency situations.

Strong Partnership Between Two Healthcare Leaders

• Patients have quick access to more specialized care and imaging services. For example, patients can easily get an MRI, undergo surgery or have other complex procedures without transferring to another facility.
• Family members of patients from out of the area may stay in housing owned by LDS Hospital at a reduced cost.
• Patients can choose to eat what they want, when they want it, thanks to the LDS Hospital room service program.

“Our new hospital is high-tech and very functional. But it also feels more like home here, and that was really important to us,” said Hook. “Our patients are usually with us for a long time. We want their surroundings to be comfortable, not institutional.”

The move to the new location is expected to begin on Sept. 14, with three ambulances and three special medical vans transporting patients to their new rooms throughout the day. Promise will set up a command center to oversee the safe transition.

Promise Hospital of Salt Lake will operate as a separate entity from LDS Hospital. It is owned and operated by Promise Healthcare, Inc., one of the leading long-term acute care hospital organizations in the country. It has more than 2,000 staff members and 800 licensed beds nationwide, and operates 14 licensed long-term acute care hospitals in six states.