Cox Walnut Lawn expands services, facility

In the nearly two years since Columbia Hospital South, located at 3535 S. National Ave., became Cox Walnut Lawn, several changes have taken place, including major renovations, said Cox Walnut Lawn Administrator Ron Prenger.

The facility's former emergency room has been completely redone and is now an urgent care center, he said. All of the common areas in the building have been redone, the cafeteria has been remodeled and the most visible change is the new patient entrance on the west side of the building. Prenger said there are also new registration and admitting areas.

Facilities are just part of the change. There also have been changes in terms of patient care. Prenger said Cox Walnut Lawn no longer provides acute medical-surgical patient care services, which are available at Cox Medical Center South. The facility also has eliminated maternity services, as those have been consolidated with the maternity unit at Cox South.

Prenger said one of the major changes in patient care occurred in March 1999, when Cox Health Systems combined the skilled nursing unit at Cox South with the existing skilled nursing unit at Cox Walnut Lawn to create a 43-bed skilled nursing facility in the 400 wing of the Walnut Lawn location.

Prenger said the skilled nursing unit is not a nursing home, rather it is a transitional unit. It is designed for patients who may need rehabilitation or a higher degree of care in the hospital setting before they are ready to go home or be transferred to a long-term care facility.

He said Cox Walnut Lawn also provides rehabilitation services.

"In many ways, we are transitioning this facility as far as patient care to more of a habilitative-type center, and to further that statement, in February 2000, we completed our renovations and moved our rehab unit (from Cox South) over here," Prenger said.

He added that Cox Walnut Lawn now has 34 rehabilitation beds on its 100 wing, and the center's 200 wing has been converted to acute rehabilitation therapies.

"We do quite a bit of rehab here, and that will be a future focus for us, as well expanding rehab down the road and we're looking at some strategies now that will complement our current business," Prenger said.

Cox Walnut Lawn is licensed by the state as a location of Cox Medical Center South, and one of the main focuses at Cox Walnut Lawn is to alleviate patient load at Cox South when possible.

"Cox South does a nice job, but they just have so much business that we're looking at ways that we can make it better for the patient. Whoever's coming to Cox, whether it be to Walnut Lawn, Cox South or Cox North, we want to make it as fast and as convenient as possible," Prenger said. "We're not looking to duplicate what's available at Cox North or Cox South. We want to make sure we have the capabilities to meet patient needs, but we're not going to duplicate," he said.

Prenger said Cox Walnut Lawn does not offer inpatient surgery, but the center has a healthy outpatient surgery business.

"We're currently looking at plans of renovation to our ambulatory surgery and our surgery facility so that we can do more outpatient surgery here," he said.

Prenger added that Cox Walnut Lawn's radiology capabilities have been expanded. A recently completed construction project expanded the facilities to house a new CT scanner. CT scan patients will be served by the new unit beginning June 5.

He said ideas that would allow the center to expand services for the geriatric population also are being considered.

"Anything that we can feel we can bring into this facility that makes sense to, again, help improve the services of Cox Health Systems, then we will take a serious look at it," he said.

Prenger said there are probably more than 200 employees at Cox Walnut Lawn, and more are added as necessary.

"This is an excellent group of people working here, and it's a beautiful mesh of people that were here from the days of Columbia with long-term Cox employees. It's a great group of people to work with; their energy really spills over," he said.

Cox Walnut Lawn has 77 beds available. There is one unoccupied unit in the center, and Cox Health System administrators are looking at feasibility studies of programs that would fit with Cox Walnut Lawn's focus on rehabilitation.

Prenger said he thinks Cox Walnut Lawn is making excellent progress.

"We've got a long ways to go, and you can't transform this in a day. This will be an ongoing effort," he said.

"I really feel that we're doing very well in terms of attracting the population and the patients that need to be in these facilities. People are very open to coming here, and I think once they've had an option to see the place ... they're very receptive to coming back."