ATRIUM HEALTH

The David L. Conlan Center at Atrium Health Carolinas Rehabilitation replaces a facility built in 1950.

A new rehabilitation center opens for patients Jan.14 near Little Sugar Creek Greenway.

The David L. Conlan Center at Atrium Health Carolinas Rehabilitation will provide care to the region’s most seriously injured or ill people with state-of-the-art upgrades and innovations. The center replaces a building constructed in 1950 that became the first desegregated hospital in Charlotte two years later with surgeon Dr. Charles Warren Williams, and general practitioner Dr. Emery Rann Jr. The existing facility, along with the Blythe parking deck, will be removed to make room for a new trauma center.

“Right now, our acute care facilities are just full,” said Todd Bennett, vice president of operations at Atrium Health Carolina’s Rehabilitation. “With our new setup, we’re going to have 72 available beds that actually increases our capacity greatly. Even though we actually have about 70 licensed beds at our current facility, we can’t utilize them all because of the way that the facility is set up with the wards of the semi-privates, so this will definitely increase our capacity to help offload other hospitals.”

The 153,000 square foot hospital was built in 2020 and has 72 private inpatient rooms with a larger gym space, therapy garden, and in-room dialysis capability.

The center has 16,000 square feet of inpatient and outpatient therapy space and provides certified programs for spinal cord injury, traumatic brain injury and cancer. The facility contains an adaptive sports and adventure program, a one-of-a-kind resource for the region which offers new ways to people with mobility impairments to enjoy tennis, kayaking and rugby.

Within the hospital is a center for independent living and an OB-GYN clinic for those who regularly use a wheelchair.

Construction for the new building totaled $100 million.

A $30 million gift from Howard C. “Smoky” Bissell, his wife Margaret and Bissell Ballantyne was provided to Atrium Health to honor the life of David L. Conlan, a patient at the hospital and benefited from rehabilitative medicine. Conlan, a longtime friend, colleague, and advisor to the Bissell family, died in 2021.

“Our new rehabilitation hospital will provide an environment with a focus on patient experience, enhanced quality of care and be a state-of-the-art hospital that will allow for recruitment of the best and the brightest providers,” said Dr. William Bockenek, chief medical officer of Atrium Health Carolinas Rehabilitation. “Each of these will help raise the standards of excellence for Carolinas Rehabilitation, continuing to make this hospital a leader in patient care.”

Atrium Health is ranked North Carolina’s best rehabilitation hospital by Newsweek.

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