Albuquerque, N.M.-based Ernest Health has started construction on a new rehabilitation hospital in Flagstaff, Ariz., reports Arizona Daily Sun.
The 40-bed Rehabilitation Hospital of Northern Arizona will feature services in physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy for patients who have suffered strokes, hip fractures, brain injuries and other traumas, according to the article. The project is expected to create approximately 120 new jobs.
Ernest Health directors said they wanted to open a second facility in Arizona to serve patients in the northern region of the state, according to the report.
"The reason why we're building is we felt like the volume of patients could justify it," Daryl Williams, director of marketing and business development for Prescott Valley, Ariz.-based Mountain Valley Regional Rehabilitation Hospital said, according to the report. "Our hope is, by putting a facility there, we'll get not only all the folks in Flagstaff that we don't get [in Prescott Valley] because it's too far, but then also all those folks on the [Navajo] reservation."
Hospital officials expect the facility to open in fall 2017.