The Wilhelmina Hospital Assen (WZA), Icare and Interzorg want to jointly build a new recovery center at the hospital. The three healthcare organizations want to improve recovery and rehabilitation care in Assen and shorten the length of stay. The aim is for the center to be built in 2028. Costs are around 25 million euros.
The three parties signed a declaration of intent for the joint project yesterday. This paves the way for the next step, which is securing financing in the coming months. They go to banks and health insurers for this.
According to the parties, a recovery center on the hospital grounds ensures ‘maximum cooperation benefits’. “Specialists who have treated patients are, as it were, around the corner from the recovery center,” says WZA director Hans Mulder. “And patients who arrive via the emergency department could go directly to the center for recovery and rehabilitation after surgery and thus do not have to occupy a hospital bed.”
After treatment in the WZA, patients are currently admitted to the Anholt nursing home of Interzorg or the De Boshof rehabilitation center of Icare for their further recovery and rehabilitation. Together they have 126 beds available in outdated buildings.
The new recovery center will consist of 96 beds. “Despite the increase in the older target group, we expect that we can make do with fewer beds. We think more in recovery-oriented care than in bricks and mortar. Allowing patients to rehabilitate at home is often also a better option,” says WZA director Hans Mulder.
The three parties believe that by combining their expertise they will improve quality. “The idea is that hospital and elderly care will soon work together in the recovery center to provide the right care in the right place, and by the right care provider.”
The parties hope to maintain available, affordable and accessible rehabilitation care through the collaboration. Because the demand for care is increasing due to the growing group of elderly people. “We already have close lines of communication with each other, and we already work very well together in Assen. But by moving into one building, we can focus even more on person-centered care, a shorter hospital stay and better health outcomes.”
They also want to exchange nurses, so that they can be deployed in both nursing home and hospital care. With the enormous shortage in the labor market for healthcare personnel, the authorities also hope to benefit from this. They are also considering a joint training center at the WZA, in collaboration with the Drenthe College and the Alfa College.
In anticipation of construction, the healthcare parties want to test a kind of testing ground. The fourth nursing department of the WZA will be freed up for this purpose, to experiment with the recovery and rehabilitation project there. That will happen next year.
It should become clear in October whether the joint recovery center is feasible and affordable. The intended construction location is on the northeast side of the hospital complex, along Beilerstraat. There have been temporary office units at that location for a few years.