Newswise — UChicago Medicine and Shirley Ryan AbilityLab have joined forces to bring the services and expertise of a premier rehabilitation hospital to patients of the academic health system.

Shirley Ryan AbilityLab will take on the clinical management of inpatient rehabilitation services at Ingalls Memorial Hospital in Harvey starting Nov. 1. Over the next year, the alliance is expected to expand to inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation services in all clinical facilities at UChicago Medicine’s Hyde Park campus and later to Ingalls’ outpatient facilities in the south suburbs.

A dedicated team from Shirley Ryan AbilityLab — including physiatrists (physical medicine and rehabilitation physicians) — will lead the administrative and clinical oversight of the programs. Current therapists and other staff-level employees will continue to be employed by Ingalls Memorial Hospital or, as the alliance expands over the next year, the University of Chicago Medical Center.

“This collaboration will allow the two organizations to work together and transfer knowledge and best practices in rehabilitation medicine, which will enhance the services we offer throughout our health system,” said Audre Bagnall, chief strategy officer and executive vice president for business development. “We share the same commitment to providing high-quality care and expect the transition of clinical management to be seamless.”

The arrangement is the latest alliance for the two leading health providers, which have a long history of successfully working with other organizations to expand care into more communities.

“Central to our mission is expanding our reach — locally, nationally and globally — so that patients have access to the best in rehabilitation care, with the greatest outcomes,” said Christine DeLeo, vice president, Strategic Alliances, Shirley Ryan AbilityLab. “We look forward to sharing our clinical and operating expertise first with Ingalls Memorial, which has expressed a deep commitment to building on current success and investing in its quality of rehabilitation services.”

Shirley Ryan AbilityLab has been ranked the “No. 1 Rehabilitation Hospital in America” by U.S. News & World Report every year since 1991. It has similar, effective collaborations with AMITA Health Rehabilitation Hospital Elk Grove Village and AMITA Health Adventist Medical Center La Grange, Silver Cross Hospital, Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center and Southern Illinois Healthcare. The organization has forged recent alliances in international geographies, as well. Anchored by its new flagship research hospital in Chicago’s Streeterville neighborhood, the organization operates nearly 40 sites of care around Illinois and beyond.

UChicago Medicine, based in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood, sees patients in 45 locations around Chicago and Northwest Indiana. The growing academic health system added Ingalls Memorial and the Harvey hospital’s outpatient sites and urgent care facilities to its network in 2016. The most recent U.S. News report ranked UChicago Medicine as the No. 2 hospital in Illinois.

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About the University of Chicago Medicine & Biological Sciences

The University of Chicago Medicine, with a history dating back to 1927, is one of the nation’s leading academic health systems. It unites the missions of the University of Chicago Medical Center, Pritzker School of Medicine and the Biological Sciences Division. Twelve Nobel Prize winners in physiology or medicine have been affiliated with the University of Chicago Medicine. Its main Hyde Park campus is home to the Center for Care and Discovery, Bernard Mitchell Hospital, Comer Children’s Hospital and the Duchossois Center for Advanced Medicine. It also has ambulatory facilities in Orland Park and the South Loop as well as affiliations and partnerships that create a regional network of care. UChicago Medicine offers a full range of specialty-care services for adults and children through more than 40 institutes and centers including an NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center. Together with Harvey-based Ingalls Memorial, UChicago Medicine has 1,286 licensed beds, nearly 1,300 attending physicians, about 3,200 nurses and over 1,100 residents and fellows.

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About the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab

Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, formerly the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC), is the global leader in physical medicine and rehabilitation for adults and children with the most severe, complex conditions — from traumatic brain and spinal cord injury to stroke, amputation and cancer-related impairment. The organization expands and accelerates leadership in the field that began at RIC in 1953. The quality of its care and research has led to the designation of “No. 1 Rehabilitation Hospital in America” by U.S. News & World Report every year since 1991. Upon opening in March 2017, the $550 million, 1.2-million-square-foot Shirley Ryan AbilityLab became the first-ever “translational” research hospital in which clinicians, scientists, innovators and technologists work together in the same space, surrounding patients, discovering new approaches and applying (or “translating”) research real time. This unique model enables patients to have 24/7 access to the brightest minds, the latest research and the best opportunity for recovery. Shirley Ryan AbilityLab is a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organization.

For more information, go to www.sralab.org, @ShirleyRyanAbilityLab (Facebook) and @AbilityLab (Twitter).