CARF International announced that St. Mary's Center for Rehabilitative Medicine (CRM) has been accredited for a period of three years for its inpatient rehabilitation program, including a specialty accreditation for adult stroke care. The latest accreditation is the fifth consecutive three-year accreditation that CARF has given to St. Mary's CRM.

This accreditation represents the highest level of accreditation that can be given to an organization and shows the organization’s substantial conformance to CARF standards. An organization receiving a Three-Year Accreditation has put itself through a rigorous peer review process. It has demonstrated to a team of surveyors during an on-site visit its commitment to offering programs and services that are measurable, accountable, and of the highest quality.

"CARF accreditation demonstrates that St. Mary's Center for Rehabilitative Medicine has made a specific commitment to put the needs of our patients at the center of everything we do," said Montez Carter, St. Mary's President and CEO. "It is official recognition that our organization is guided by internationally recognized service standards and best practices. I'm very proud of our medical staff, leadership, colleagues, and our partners with Kindred Hospital Rehabilitation Services for their continuous work to maintain our CARF accreditation."

Founded in 2003, St. Mary's Center for Rehabilitative Medicine, or CRM, is a 20-bed unit providing intensive physical, occupational and speech-language therapy to help people recover from some 25 debilitating conditions, including strokes, car accidents and heart attacks. Patients receive at least three hours a day of therapy, six days a week, in an inpatient setting with 24/7 nursing and medical care. All care is directed by a physician medical director and therapy services are provided by Kindred.

"We are extremely proud that our center exceeds national standards for patient outcomes year after year," said Ashley Cown, RN, director of the center. "For example, 82.5 percent of our patients are able to go home rather than to a nursing home or other institutional setting, compared to a national average of 78 percent."

Those good outcomes and short lengths of stay (11.7 days on average, versus 13.2 nationally) are part of the reason the center was ranked among the top 10 percent of inpatient rehabilitation centers in the United States earlier this year by the Uniform Data System for Medical Rehabilitation.