Brooks, the largest provider of rehabilitation services in Northeast Florida, strengthened its presence in the Central Florida area this year. Joining an existing Brooks outpatient center in Orange City, Brooks opened three new centers in Waterford Lakes, Winter Park and most recently, Lake Mary.

Physicians may already be familiar with Brooks Rehabilitation Hospital, the company's 143-bed acute physical rehabilitation facility in Jacksonville, Florida. JCAHO- and CARF-accredited, the hospital is one of Florida's only state-designated treatment facilities for brain and spinal cord injuries for children and adults, and is also one of only two inpatient rehabilitation centers in the state that treats infants and young children.

The hospital's programmatic approach to care is organized around six Centers of Excellence—stroke, hip fracture, pediatrics, brain injury, spinal cord injury and orthopedics and includes other comprehensive inpatient programs, including amputee, general rehabilitation and neurological disorders.

"For more than 35 years, Brooks has provided leadership as a non-profit organization with the unique mission of advancing healthcare for the treatment and prevention of disabilities," said Brooks CEO Doug Baer. "Brooks offers complete care to even the most complex patients of all ages with our unique, interdisciplinary approach. In addition to our rehabilitation hospital, we offer home health services and provide a full range of specialized outpatient therapies in more than 25 conveniently located sites. We truly can provide the most comprehensive post-acute continuum of care for our patients in the region".

As a non-profit rehabilitation system, Brooks' therapists in Central Florida have instant access to the entire Brooks system of rehabilitation experts. That means access to cutting edge research, state-of-the-art treatment techniques, and advanced education.

Brooks' integrated treatment teams include certified therapists from many disciplines who receive ongoing training in the latest approaches—like manual therapy—and provide highly personalized, evidence-based care.

The company's commitment to evidence-based therapies has also led its leaders to collaborate with the University of Florida (UF) to develop the Brooks Center for Rehabilitation Studies, and to participate in ongoing studies, including the largest grant for rehabilitation studies ever awarded by the National Institute of Health.

The Brooks Center, in collaboration with UF, partners with other academic institutions such as the University of Central Florida (UCF), University of North Florida, and Duke University, as well as local medical institutions such as Shands Jacksonville, Mayo Clinic and Veterans Administration.

In Central Florida, Brooks' outpatients with a primary complaint of neck pain can participate in a research study to outline a standardized examination process and implement a treatment protocol to determine which patients with neck pain are likely to benefit from a program of conditioning and exercise tolerance. Led by William J. Hanney, DPT, ATC/L, an Instructor at the University of Central Florida and therapist at Brooks, the exercise program will consist of education, stretching, strengthening and conditioning.

To understand how unique the new Brooks Waterford Lakes Clinic is, you have to know what a 4-year-old-boy and a 96-year-old great-grandmother have in common even though they are not related. The answer is they have both improved thanks to 1988 Olympic Silver Medalist and physical therapist, Tracey McFarlane. McFarlane has exceptional talent for understanding people of all ages and is able to restore their lives through the practice of physical therapy – a talent she brings to Brooks at the Waterford Lakes location.

McFarlane's background includes managing multiple outpatient sites, and developing strong relationships with local referral sources. She specializes in treatment of orthopedics and sports related injuries. Before she was an MPT, Tracey was a highly-successful competitive swimmer. She swam on the 1988 Olympic Team in Seoul, Korea winning a silver medal for the 400-meter medley relay and was the national record holder for the 100-meter breaststroke from 1988-1992.

She also wrote about her experience in sports training in her book Championship Swimming, published by McGraw-Hill and containing exercises to prevent shoulder injuries.

"Although our focus in Waterford Lakes is on Orthopaedic-related diagnoses, it is great to know that I can call on the Brooks Winter Park location on neurological cases for they handle those diagnoses routinely" McFarlane said. In addition to neurological conditions, the Winter Park Center specializes in treating patients with low back pain and with pediatrics cases.

When asked what makes the Winter Park outpatient center unique, Center Manager Sally Yang, MSPT said, "I keep hearing from my patients that they like the one-on-one personal interaction/attention with their therapist."

Besides giving patients access to the best new treatments, Brooks therapists provide a highly personalized, hands-on approach that encourages patients to step up to the challenges of therapy. By collecting functional outcome measures such as the Quick Dash, Neck Disability Index or Modified Oswestry Index of patients, it allows Brooks to monitor opportunities for improvement. In addition, Brooks also utilizes Press Ganey, an independently nationally recognized vendor, to measure their patient satisfaction scores against those of other outpatient rehabilitation providers across the country. Year to date, the overall patient satisfaction score for our Central Florida locations is over 96%. At Brooks, customer service is number one and they believe focusing on patient outcomes will increase patient satisfaction. Consistently measuring performance allows Brooks therapists to look for best practice and drive towards clinical excellence.

In addition to the Waterford Lakes and Winter Park outpatient facilities, Brooks has locations in Central Florida in Lake Mary and West Volusia/Orange City. Other outpatient centers are located in the Tampa Bay area, throughout northeast Florida and in Southeast Georgia.