New and Improved Rehabilitation Center to Add 50 Jobs at Lakewood Hospital

The newly renovated rehabilitation center will provide some people with the help they need to get back on their feet. It will provide others with a job in Lakewood.

The facility — following the merger with Fairview Hospital’s rehabilitation center — will be the West Side hub of the Cleveland Clinic Rehabilitation Hospital.

The center will bring 50 jobs to Lakewood, hospital officials said Tuesday during a ribbon-cutting event to highlight the $5 million renovation.

“We are so proud to have this opportunity here to improve on our patient experience around rehabilitation and this established center of excellence,” said Janice Murphy, the president of Fairview and Lakewood hospitals. “At the center of all of this is the patient, and that’s why this is so exciting.”

Hospital officials unveiled the renovations to the facility, which now measures about 12,222 square feet, on Tuesday. Among the benefits of the expansion are an increased total of 35 beds and 29 private rooms, along with added therapy space.

Each room in the new center has a high-tech computer system linking together all of the Cleveland Clinic records.

And about half of those rooms have a view of Detroit Avenue.

Dan Shamir, the medical director for the Cleveland Clinic Rehabilitation Center, said the project “turned out beautiful.”

“This is positive for the hospital and I think it will have a positive effect on the community as well,” said Dan Shamir, the medical director for the Cleveland Clinic Rehabilitation Center. “We’re bringing over Fairview nursing staff, therapy staff and physicians. Now, the next step is to integrate the new team here in Lakewood." 

The center will specialize in rehabilitation for people recovering from strokes, traumatic injury, major surgery and severe illness.

Molly Getzlaff, the center’s nursing manager, said the center’s goal is to get patients healthy and get them home. 

“Rehabilitation is our specialty,” she said.