The grand opening of the Houston Methodist Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation at The Woodlands was held on Friday, Feb. 7, 2020. An open house and tour was given to attendees of the ribbon-cutting.
Houston Methodist The Woodlands Hospital hosted a grand opening and ribbon-cutting Friday evening to celebrate its new $4 million physical therapy and rehabilitation center expansion.
The project has been underway since the beginning of 2019 and has finally come to fruition. One of the major reasons for this expansion was the growing need and the immense response from the community on their services, said Ben Renfrow, director of rehabilitation at Houston Methodist Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation The Woodlands.
“I could not be more excited about the opening,” Debbie Sukin said, CEO of Houston Methodist The Woodlands and regional senior vice president of Houston Methodist. “This has been a vision that we’ve had since the campus first started and we knew with growth and development that we’d have this incredible opportunity to expand our services that we started with but be able to do it in a much more advanced, comprehensive way.”
The facility now features 70 yards of outdoor agility turf and includes an outdoor basketball court and an outdoor cross fit gym. This helps with athletes because it can stimulate what they’re likely to experience in a more realistic way, Renfrow says.
The interior of the new facility is 15,000 square feet and the agility turf area covers 7,000 square feet.
“We are introducing a level of knowledge and technology that is really unparalleled and it’s going to be wow factor when patients come to this facility,” Renfrow said. “It’ll be their gold standard for anything that’s rehab related. It’s going to be wowing the patients and taking them to a whole other resolve with their respective injuries.”
The center features cutting edge technology, such as “bioness integrated visual training system, full-length indoor pitching and batting cage, full-swing multisport simulator, neurological virtual reality simulator, outdoor sports and agility training field and vector dynamic unloader,” according to information from Houston Methodist The Woodlands.
The facility offers physical, occupational, speech therapy and cater to sports, orthopedic, neuro, pelvic health, and cardiac rehab. Although the hospital opened with most of these service, due to the volume and response to their expertise in these areas the expansion was needed, Renfrow said.
“I think it’s about handling the continued growth of the campus and community in general,” Marc Labbe said, orthopedic surgeon and vice president of staff at Houston Methodist The Woodlands. “We expanded so quickly that we needed the extra space to handle all of the volume and that also gave us the opportunity to expand our infrastructure with our newer technologies.”
Renfrow says that they are the first to utilize virtual reality in treating neurological conditions. They are able to stimulate any particular circumstance that they want to help patients better at such as the tasks involved in grocery shopping, he added.
Along with the already staffed employees, additional hires will cater to the facility’s needs.
“I think it’s really exciting to truly lead medicine through innovative technology, through world-class clinicians,” said Trent Fulin, vice president and chief operating officer at Houston Methodist The Woodlands. “It’s the experience that our patients have when they enter those doors, the minute you walk into this facility it is different than every other rehab center across the country.”
laraib.hashmi@chron.com