Highland Hospital Press Room
New Unit Offers Space, Comfort & Specialized Care
Rochester, N.Y., February 7, 2012 — Highland Hospital launched a neuromedicine service and expanded its Evarts Joint Center with the opening of the new East 7 unit. The unit allows the Highland team to provide specialized care centered on patients and their families.
For Patients and Their Loved Ones
East 7 was built with patients and their family members in mind. The unit has 15 private rooms and six post-surgical step-down 
beds. All the rooms are spacious with flat-screen televisions, and five rooms for long-term patients will be equipped with refrigerators and fold-out beds. There also is a family room with a kitchen area.
Care Team
The nurses on East 7 are specially trained in post-operative care for neuromedicine, neurosurgical and orthopaedic patients as well as on new technology that will help in managing patient care. A nurse educator also works on the unit.
New Capabilities
The addition of post-surgical step-down beds enables Highland to do more neurosurgery and to care for patients with more complex medical needs. Step-down beds give patients more time to be monitored by staff before making the transition home.
New user-friendly portable EKG (electrocardiogram) monitors and EEG (electroencephalogram) video monitors will enable staff to keep careful watch over vulnerable patients.
The Need
The Evarts Joint Center opened at Highland in 2004 and was the first joint replacement center in the region to earn Joint Commission Center of Excellence designation. Since then, demand for the hospital’s orthopaedic services has grown. The number of joint replacement cases at Highland increased almost 39 percent from fiscal year 2005 to fiscal year 2011. Evarts Joint Center patients will now receive care on both East 6 and East 7.
Demand for neurological care also is likely to increase as the population ages. Doctors expect to see more patients with neurological disease, stroke, Alzheimer’s and other complex conditions. According to Robert Holloway, M.D., Chief of Neurology, up to 30 percent of all hospitalized patients have some type of neurological problem.
For Immediate Release
Contact: Barbara Ficarra
Director of Public Relations
(585) 341-6210
Or
Meghan Backus
Public Relations Specialist
(585) 341-0660
