Skilled Nursing: Specialty Services

UPMC Senior Communities Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation facilities offer a number of specialized care services for patients.

Restorative Nursing

Restorative Nursing provides the bridge between rehabilitation therapy treatment services and a functional, safe discharge to the community or to maintaining function within a long-term facility. Each of the seven UPMC Senior Communities skilled nursing facilities provides dedicated Restorative Nursing Program (RNP) teams consisting of the Restorative Nursing Program Coordinator and specially trained Restorative Certified Nursing Assistants. These teams work with other members of the interdisciplinary team and are closely aligned with the rehabilitation therapists and the certified nursing assistants to assist the resident to either improve or maintain functional abilities in a variety of areas.

The Restorative Nursing Program refers to nursing interventions that promote the residents ability to adapt and adjust to living as independently and as safely as possible. This concept actively focuses on achieving and maintaining optimal physical, mental, and psychosocial functioning. Included are interventions that assist or promote the residents’ ability to attain or maintain maximal functional potential. Long term care regulations state the residents must achieve or maintain the highest practicable level of functioning and this can be achieved through Restorative Nursing Programs.

The Restorative Nursing Program includes the following services:

• Bed mobility
• Transfers
• Ambulation
• Dressing and grooming
• Splint and brace assistance
• Prosthetic assistance
• Range of motion
• Eating and swallowing
• Communication
• Toileting programs

Transitional Rehab Unit (TRU)

The UPMC Rehabilitation Institute’s transitional rehabilitation unit (TRU) is a short-stay rehabilitation unit designed to meet the needs of patients being discharged from the hospital, acute care setting, or doctor’s office. These patients require additional therapy before returning home or progressing to an inpatient rehabilitation facility.

Learn more about the UPMC Rehabilitation Institute's transitional rehabilitation units.

Staff Assist Home Hemodialysis

The Staff Assist Home Hemodialysis Program is offered by Fresenius Medical Care at Seneca Place for Hemodialysis patients that need nursing home placement and hemodialysis. The program is for long-term hemodialysis patients. Eligible patients would be:

• Patients who are confined to the facility for medical reasons, ex: specialty beds, wound care, etc.
• Tracheostomy/ventilator dependent patients
• Obese patients that cannot be transported
• Isolation patients

To qualify for the Staff Assist Home Hemodialysis Program the patient must meet the guidelines for a Home Hemodialysis Home Patient from Fresenius Medical Care. The patient must:

• Be able to participate in their care to the best of their ability
• Be medically stable
• Have functioning hemodialysis access.

Wound Care

Each skilled nursing facility within UPMC Senior Communities employs a full time, dedicated wound care nurse specialist. The wound care nurse specialist manages new and healing wound care concerns, and coordinates the skin management for all residents in the facility, both short term and long term residents. Skin and wound management is a specialized practice area that focuses on overall skin care and promotion of an optimal skin and wound environment that includes prevention, therapeutic interventions and rehabilitative interventions.