Vanderbilt Stallworth Rehabilitation Hospital (photo by Erin O. Smith)
A major change to how patient care is organized for physical medicine and rehabilitation patients is being implemented — allowing greater, separate focuses on inpatient and outpatient populations.
The current Rehabilitation and Pain Medicine (RPM) Patient Care Center (PCC) will now focus on outpatient rehabilitation medicine services and pain medicine (both inpatient and outpatient). A new Inpatient Rehabilitation Medicine PCC has been created to focus on patients in inpatient facilities.
PCCs are each made up of a team of related physicians, health care providers and resources to treat a defined patient group.
“The justification for this change lies in the complexity, scope and distinct operational needs of these services,” said Patty Wright, MD, Professor of Medicine and Orthopaedic Surgery and Chief Medical Officer for Adult Ambulatory Clinics.
Vanderbilt Health’s inpatient rehabilitation program spans multiple facilities, including Vanderbilt Stallworth Rehabilitation Hospital and Vanderbilt University Hospital, with plans for additional regional inpatient expansion.
In addition, the new inpatient PCC will align adult medical speech-language pathology services with the inpatient rehabilitation care team, said Melissa Duff, PhD, CCC-SLP, Vickie and Thomas Flood Professor and Chair of the Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences.
“Medical speech-language pathologists are critical members of the interdisciplinary inpatient rehabilitation team,” Duff said, “providing specialized assessment and treatment of cognitive-communication, language, speech and swallowing disorders that are essential to patient recovery, functional independence and safe transitions of care. This expertise makes their alignment with the Inpatient Rehabilitation Medicine PCC a natural fit.”
The now outpatient-focused RPM PCC includes Vanderbilt Health rehabilitation medicine clinics, pain medicine clinics, ambulatory procedural areas, outpatient physical and occupational therapy programs, and speech-language pathology services.
“This allows the RPM PCC dedicated oversight to coordinate multidisciplinary care and align with ambulatory priorities, including incorporation of Pi Beta Phi Rehabilitation Institute, Dayani Center, and Osher Center for Integrative Health,” Wright said.
The inpatient PCC is led by Executive Medical Director CJ Plummer, MD, Assistant Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. The outpatient PCC is led by Executive Medical Director Gurjeet Birdee, MD, MPH, Associate Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.
Wright said dividing responsibilities between two executive medical directors ensures focused attention to each domain (inpatient and outpatient), supports integration across complex programs, and aligns with Vanderbilt Health’s strategic vision for growth, including regional expansion and the development of innovative rehabilitation and pain medicine services.
Wright noted the changes solely affect operations and do not impact academic departments or structures.
