The Role of LTACHs in COVID-19 Recovery | Healthcare Video Production Louisville
As COVID-19 overwhelmed ICUs across the country in 2020, a critical question emerged for hospital systems everywhere: where do patients go when they are no longer sick enough to need intensive care, but not yet well enough to go home?
The answer, for many patients, was a Long Term Acute Care Hospital — an LTACH. And Kindred Healthcare's Chicago facilities were among the most well-equipped in the country to provide that care.
We produced this piece to explain the LTACH model to a broader audience and to show, through the stories of real patients and caregivers, exactly what was happening inside Kindred's facilities at one of the most critical moments in modern American healthcare history.
The production challenge was significant: making a complex healthcare policy and clinical concept accessible, human, and genuinely compelling to a general audience. We approached it the same way we approach all healthcare storytelling — by letting the people at the center of the story do the talking. The result combines clear, informative messaging with the kind of human moments that make an abstract healthcare concept real and meaningful.
About This Project
Client: Kindred Healthcare / ScionHealth
Type: Healthcare explainer, patient stories, corporate communications
Location: Chicago, Illinois
Services: On-location production, interviews, scripting, editing
Louisville's Best Video Production Company
John Flower Productions produces healthcare video, corporate communications, and documentary content for health systems and national brands.
Ready to talk about your next project? Contact us.
Video Transcript:
We believe that post-COVID patients coming to an LTACH environment, this is the best place for them. They are not ready for a discharge to home, but they really don't need to tie up an intensive care bed in an acute care facility. So that's where transition care hospitals come in. We are able to accept those patients and pretty much continue that intensive care. The COVID-19 virus obviously affected patients that already have pre-existing medical conditions, especially respiratory issues. And Kindred, as an LTACH that specializes in ventilator management and being able to successfully wean patients off the ventilator, I think we were the perfect place to take care of these patients. These patients that we receive that are post-COVID are the patients that are basically, they're difficult to treat, they are medically complex, and they're critically ill.
So that's where we came in. On day one, if the patient was stable, we started weaning. Physical therapy on day two would come in and assess them and start the physical therapy at the bedside. We had patients that were mobilized so early that they started walking even before they even got off the ventilators. I think that's where Kindred, as a company and as what we do, is very important for these post-COVID patients. I think a lot of these people thought they didn't know if they were going to make it. And then now they come here and, again, your mindset kind of switches, "Okay, I've survived the hardest part. Let's, every day, progress to more and more." Maybe they sat up for the first time at the edge of the bed, or they're taking first steps or standing. It's so motivating for them. So then they work even harder in therapy, and they just get better so much quicker. And I think with post-COVID, that's kind of been the coolest thing as a therapist, how many people are going home.
We have the appropriate specialties to care for these patients. We were able to get patients home to lower levels of care where they probably wouldn't have without utilizing a long-term acute care facility.