Select Specialty Hospital – Quad Cities, a critical illness recovery hospital, is moving to the third floor of Genesis Medical Center – Davenport, a hospital inside a hospital.

Select is a critical illness recovery hospital that cares for patients with specialized needs including those recovering from traumatic injuries or illness such as post-ICU patients recovering from infectious diseases, surgical complications and orthopedic, wound or post-trauma care.

Part of the third floor of Genesis Medical Center (formerly a surgical specialty floor), East Campus, has been renovated for the Jan. 31 move of Select Specialty Hospital — Quad Cities (photo by Jonathan Turner).

These patients may also require ongoing treatment for pulmonary conditions, neurological disorders, cardiac conditions or renal disorders.

Select Specialty Hospital (1111 W. Kimberly Road, at Marquette Street) has played a key role in the pandemic, decompressing ICUs by admitting and caring for recovering COVID patients which allows short term acute care hospitals, such as Genesis Medical Center, to admit more acute patients, according to a release from the medical organizations.

After 17 years in west Davenport, Select is moving to Genesis East (1227 E. Rusholme St., Davenport), driven partly by the needs of the aging Davenport building, and the fact that Select often partnered with Genesis, said Codie Dillie, a registered nurse and CEO of the QC Select Specialty Hospital.

Codie Dillie, the CEO of Select Specialty Hospital in Davenport, and Jordan Voigt, president of Genesis Medical Center, Davenport, on Thursday morning, Jan. 26, 2023 (photo by Jonathan Turner).

“I think that partnership grew and they were able to have space for us,” she said Thursday morning. Select actually has fewer beds at Genesis (35) than currently (50).

“I think it was just really about the patients – being inside the hospital gives our patients the opportunity to be seen by more specialty physicians,” Dillie said. “It gives them the opportunity to have all the tests and procedures right here, where currently if they would need certain things, they’d have to get in the ambulance and go to the hospital.

“Now we’re just an elevator ride from those things,” she said, noting the Select wing of Genesis East also is on the same floor as the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).

At Genesis, the Select wing was used as a surgical specialty floor (treating post-op patients), Dillie said. Select hasn’t had patients needing their 50-bed capacity all at once in a long time, she noted.

Davenport’s Select staff is now 115 employees, 18 fewer than the old location. Genesis has absorbed at least 12 of those staff, said Jordan Voigt, president of Genesis Medical Center. They are mainly in support services – such as general maintenance, food service, and environmental services.

“We continue to grow and as you grow, you need people,” he said.

Select is leasing the space from Genesis. It renovated the space and provided brand new equipment and furniture, Dillie said.

Opening in five days

Select will officially open at Genesis on Tuesday, Jan. 31. The company plans to sell the old building, through the parent corporation, Dillie said.

Voigt said the surgical specialty floor moved to the Tower A fifth floor, and Genesis built a new orthopedic floor on the seventh level.

Select Specialty Hospital has been at 1111 W. Kimberly Road, Davenport, for 17 years (photo by Jonathan Turner).

“Part of the value of having Select here is for patient continuity,” he said. “We sometimes have lengthy stays in the ICU, and when you think about it, if it was your family member, you’d feel more comfortable transitioning literally down the hall and have the continuity with subspecialists and everything else.

“If patients need a CT, MRI or ultrasound, or any other pharmaceutical, we can deliver it here than getting in an ambulance,” Voigt said. “And that frees up capacity in our ICU to be able to admit more patients from the ED (emergency department), and keep more patients local.”

“Previously, we had a great partnership,” he said of working with Select. “Now it will be better to facilitate the seamless care, to explain to family members the opportunity to transition over to Select Specialty, so they can be here, versus getting in ambulance and move over.”

“We’ll be able to admit more patients from the emergency department,” Voigt said of Genesis.

Select one of 100-plus

Select is part of a nationwide chain of more than 100 long-term acute care hospitals; the only other one in Iowa is in Des Moines. It opened in Davenport 17 years ago, and Mid City High School is attached to the hospital. Select doesn’t have any Illinois facilities; it has hospitals in Madison and Milwaukee, Wis., and two outside Chicago, in northwest Indiana.

It is a critical illness recovery facility, that transitions patients from acute care hospitals like Genesis, UnityPoint — Trinity or University of Iowa Hospitals, Dillie said. They typically care for patients coming out of surgery or intensive care, often medically complex cases, she said.

Codie Dillie in one of the Select patient rooms at Genesis East, Jan. 26, 2023 (photo by Jonathan Turner).

“We provide a high level of care; we’re allowed to give them a little bit longer stay in the hospital, to give them that time to recover,” Dillie said.

Examples are people with respiratory failure, patients on a breathing tube or ventilator, surgical complications; patients with infectious diseases, and complex wound care.

Select is not considered a rehabilitation facility, but focuses on the medical issues, Dillie said. “We can have patients who come in on a ventilator and we can only do passive range of motion until they get better,” she said.

The average length of stay is 25 days, serving patients from throughout the QC area as well as Dubuque, Cedar Falls, Cedar Rapids, Iowa City, Muscatine and Burlington.

For more information, visit the QC Select Specialty Hospital website HERE.