The Rehabilitation Hospital is a 60-bed, inpatient medical rehabilitation facility located within Lee Memorial Hospital in Ft. Myers, Florida. The hospital specializes in comprehensive, outcome-oriented medical rehabilitation services, enabling patients to live at their highest level of physical, social, and cognitive independence.

In order to continuously provide patients with top of the line care, the facility recently underwent a substantial renovation. The focus of the redesign was to create patient rooms that were conducive to the individual needs of the patients while also providing an overall welcoming and home-like atmosphere.

Nemschoff worked closely with the nursing staff of the Rehabilitation Hospital and the in-house designer of Lee Memorial Health System to ensure that the unique needs of the hospital were met. The Rehabilitation Hospital differs from the rest of Lee Memorial partly because patients stay longer and have personal belongings that need to be stored. Additionally, many patients have special equipment that needs to be concealed while still remaining accessible to the staff. 

“The process of working with Nemschoff was really exciting - they truly focused on meeting our unique needs.  We had meetings with the nursing staff, designer and the Nemschoff Account Manager to discuss what the patients needed, what the staff required and how we wanted the furniture to look. A variety of rough sketches were done as we brainstormed through the design. Once we felt that all areas were covered in the initial design, a more refined drawing of the proposed furniture was provided to the staff, ensuring that we received the exact products we needed,” said Jerry Sushil, Rehabilitation Facility Nursing Director.

The Nemschoff team worked closely with Rehabilitation Hospital staff to make additional modifications to the original drawings so that a patient room mock-up could be created. Upon installing the mock-up furniture, the staff had an opportunity to review it and make sure it would function exactly as they had envisioned during the design process. “Having the ability to see the mock-up helped us to make last-minute changes before the final furniture order was placed.  Between the input from our nurses and the Nemschoff team, we were able to create custom products that best fit the unique needs of our facility,” added Jerry.

“The core of this project was our strong focus on creating a healthy environment that was impeccably functional. Nemschoff provided us with custom bedside cabinets and wardrobes, which allowed us to successfully complete our project while also staying within the current furniture standards of Lee Memorial Health System. Nemschoff gave us great customer service and skilled insight throughout the entire design process,” said Sandra Raak, project interior designer for Lee Memorial Health System.