Northern Idaho Advanced Care Hospital has been recognized nationally for its respiratory failure care, recently becoming the 1st hospital in Idaho to earn The Joint Commission’s disease-specific certification for Respiratory Failure.
“Respiratory failure occurs when there isn’t enough oxygen passing from the lungs into the body’s bloodstream,” explains Dr. Dr. Kevin Strait, Medical Director of Northern Idaho Advanced Care Hospital. “Oxygen-rich blood is needed to help the body’s organs – such as the heart and brain – function properly. Respiratory failure also can occur if a patient’s lungs can’t remove carbon dioxide from the blood. Carbon dioxide is a waste gas that also can harm a body’s organs.”
Fortunately, the hospital staff is well prepared to treat respiratory failure.
“This certification is significant,” says Sandra Yule, Chief Executive Officer of Northern Idaho Advanced Care Hospital, “because it means that we’re providing the highest level of respiratory failure care available in the nation right here to patients in our own community.”
And for our patients, the right care can mean the difference between life and death.
Hundreds of patients are treated at Northern Idaho Advanced Care Hospital every year. The hospital, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this month, provides long-term acute and critical care services to patients throughout the Inland Northwest who are recovering from serious illnesses or injuries. Often these individuals need care for medically complex conditions such as trauma, infectious diseases, wound healing, cardiovascular disease, stroke, amputations, and – as already discussed – respiratory failure.
“Most people who need inpatient hospital services are admitted to an ‘acute care’ hospital for a relatively short amount of time,” Yule explains. “But the type of patients we treat – those with medically complex conditions – come to our hospital, which is called a long-term acute care hospital or LTACH, for continued care beyond their original hospital stay.”
At Northern Idaho Advanced Care Hospital, patients receive 24-hour nursing and respiratory care services (the hospital’s respiratory care services also are recognized nationally); speech, physical and occupational therapies; aquatic therapy; pain management; dysphagia management, ventilator weaning; and wound care. The hospital also offers a cardio/pulmonary recovery program.
A patient care team comprised of physicians, nurses, therapists, pharmacists, and other personnel work with a patient’s attending physician and other specialists to create a personalized plan that’s tailored to the patient’s needs.
“We feel that our patients recover more fully by using this comprehensive approach,” Yule says. “We want to do everything we can to help our patients to heal as completely as possible, providing them with hope and quality of life.”
The hospital, which is located at 600 Cecil in Post Falls, features all private patient rooms, and an 8-bed high-observation critical care unit. All patient rooms include cardiac monitoring equipment and mechanical ventilators. The hospital also features a 2,590-square-foot therapy gym with private therapy rooms and a heated aquatic therapy pool.
