MARQUETTE, Mich., (WJMN) – Dickinson County Healthcare System and UP Rehab Services kick off their new partnership on August 1.
The partnership will give people the ability to do rehabilitative therapies outside of the hospital located in Iron Mountain. Paul Guindon, Director of retail healthcare services for DCHS, has worked closely with U.P. Rehab services to formulate their new plan. He says the partnership will greatly increase access to more therapy.
“We’ll have a much bigger footprint, we’ll be much more accessible to the community in general as a whole which are things we’ve been working towards for quite some time now,” said Guindon. “Although we love our facility on-site, it takes a little bit to maneuver up there especially if you’ve had a recent surgery “
The current U.P. Rehab Services building in Kingsford will be renovated to include more therapy office space, private treatment rooms and a private pediatric treatment area. The location already has a pool for aqua therapy.
“We’re looking to add a lot of additional new service lines, you know a few of those are the aquatic therapy especially, we’ll be able to provide a great on-site with their HydroWorx therapy pool,” said Guindon. “We’re looking at trigger point dry needling, women’s health, and vestibular rehabilitation therapy and bariatric therapy options.”
U.P. Rehab Services CEO Russell Tripp says that their partnerships within the communities they serve are important because it helps both the healthcare system and them provide more services. U.P. Rehab can help provide both business and therapy services.
“We can bring in more programs, more therapists, you know we can help the community and provide just a higher quality of care with more access to experience levels that we can bring from different areas for training and things like that,” said Tripp.
Tripp says they are most excited about starting this new partnership because of the increase in community reach they will now have. UP Rehab Services started its first partnership 15 years ago. He says they share a vision with local healthcare providers.
“We share in the fact that we’re here to support the community, our hospitals are, in our opinion, one of the key foundations in our community to provide jobs and we want to do everything we can to support them,” said Tripp.
DCHS is already actively recruiting new therapists for their team and will continue to hire more staff as necessary. New locations and increased staffing will allow for better access to therapies according to both Tripp and Guindon.
