St. Lukes Rehabilitation Institute says it has hired two additional staff physicians, essentially creating an in-house physicians group at the 102-bed facility here.


Until recently, only two physicians on the institutes medical staff were employees of St. LukesDr. Stefan Humphries, medical director, and Dr. Robert Schwartz, who heads a team of case managers that identifies and helps prepare patients at acute-care hospitals who are candidates for St. Lukes rehabilitation programs. St. Lukes continues to contract with five other physicians for its medical staff.


St. Lukes hired Humphries three years ago to oversee medical operations. He says its important that the institutes medical staff be led by staff physicians, so patient care is aligned with the hospitals goals, which are to help patients regain function and independence following disabling injuries or illnesses, while enhancing St. Lukes role in the medical community here.


Our business function as a group is to see that St. Lukes continues to provide patients with the best care consistent with our main vision, Humphries says.


Aside from patient care, a contract physicians main priority is to attend to his or her own practice, rather than the well-being of the hospital, he says.


St. Lukes new staff physicians, or hospitalists, are Dr. Steven Goodman, who is in charge of inpatient rehabilitation, and Dr. Mark Gordon, who heads up outpatient programs. Both were hired in July.


Gordon received his medical degree from the University of South Dakota School of Medicine, in Vermillion, S.D. He interned in psychiatry at the Eisenhower Army Medical Center, in Fort Gordon, Ga., and completed his residency in physical medicine and rehabilitation at the University of Michigan Medical Center, in Ann Arbor, Mich.


He is certified in physiatry, which deals with physical rehabilitation. His subspecialty is spinal cord-injury medicine.


I like the field (of physiatry) because of the team concept, Gordon says. A physician is a team leader, but its not an autocratic approach.


Teams typically include physicians, nurses, therapists, counselors, and dietitians, who collaborate on rehabilitation plans for each patient, he says.


Goodman earned his medical degree at State University of New York. He completed an internship at UCSF Medical Center at Mount Zion, in San Francisco, and completed his residency through the University of Washington.


His subspecialty is identification and treatment of connective-tissue and musculoskeletal pain.


Goodman says he enjoys being employed rather than heading his own practice. I can focus on patients and not running a business, he says.


Humphries, who served as medical director and president of medical staff at HealthSouth Rehabilitation Hospital, in Colorado Springs, Colo., before joining St. Lukes, recently earned a masters degree in business administration from the University of Washington. Schwartz practiced physical medicine and rehabilitation in Miami before joining St. Lukes Rehabilitation Institute in 2004.


St. Lukes has a 100,000-square-foot, three-level hospital building and a 26,000-square-foot medical-office building at its main campus at 711 S. Cowley. It also operates two outpatient clinicsone in Spokane Valley and the other on Spokanes North Side.


St. Lukes, a former acute-care hospital that closed in 1992, was reopened as St. Lukes Rehabilitation Institute in 1994, by Inland Northwest Health Services.


The hospital since has become the largest freestanding rehabilitation hospital in the Northwest, Humphries asserts. St. Lukes has about 570 employees, including 58 registered nurses and 133 therapists. It logged 22,000 patient days and treated nearly 5,000 outpatients in 2007. Its 2007 revenues totaled $43 million, up $3 million from 2006.


Contact Mike McLean at (509) 344-1266 or via e-mail at mikem@spokanejournal.com.