Ascension Saint Thomas and Lifepoint Rehabilitation broke ground Tuesday on a new freestanding rehabilitation hospital in Murfreesboro, a 40-bed facility built to treat patients recovering from strokes, brain injuries, spinal cord injuries, orthopedic conditions, amputations and trauma. The two-story, roughly 62,700-square-foot building will rise on a four-acre site less than 600 yards from Ascension Saint Thomas Rutherford Hospital, putting intensive rehab care within walking distance of the existing hospital's campus.
The project, to be known as the Ascension Saint Thomas Rutherford Rehabilitation Hospital, will be operated by Lifepoint Rehabilitation through a joint venture with Ascension Saint Thomas, according to WGNS Radio. The groundbreaking follows state approval for the roughly $91 million project, which the Nashville Business Journal reported last year. As Healthcare Design notes, Ascension Saint Thomas is based in Nashville while Lifepoint Rehabilitation is headquartered in Brentwood.
What The New Facility Will Offer
The initial 40 beds will all be private patient rooms, and the station's report notes the building's architectural layout is designed to accommodate a future expansion of 10 additional beds, bringing the total to 50. Among those 40 beds will be a dedicated 12-bed acquired brain injury unit featuring specialized amenities for patients recovering from traumatic injuries.
Planned amenities throughout the hospital include a physical therapy gym, a covered outdoor therapy courtyard, a pharmacy, dining spaces and dedicated therapy work rooms, per the same account. Because the rehabilitation hospital sits so close to Ascension Saint Thomas Rutherford Hospital, the two facilities will be able to use integrated medical records and share care collaboration, allowing patients to move between acute and rehabilitative care without starting from scratch.
Jobs And Timeline
Construction on the hospital is expected to finish in late 2027. Once open, the facility is projected to create approximately 85.7 full-time-equivalent positions during its first year of operation, including an estimated 43.9 clinical roles and 41.8 nonclinical roles, the article notes.
Part Of A Broader Tennessee Push
The Murfreesboro project isn't an isolated bet. Ascension Saint Thomas and Lifepoint Rehabilitation are also partnering on a separate 40-bed inpatient rehabilitation hospital planned for the Ascension Saint Thomas Clarksville campus off Exit 11, according to NewsChannel 5. That Clarksville facility will focus on adults recovering from strokes, traumatic brain injuries and spinal cord injuries, with construction expected to start in 2026 and patients expected in 2028, as part of a larger 96-acre campus expansion that will also add cancer, orthopedic and EMS facilities.
The push for more rehabilitation and hospital capacity in Rutherford County has deep roots. Vanderbilt University Medical Center noted in 2021 that it had treated more than 52,000 Rutherford County residents the prior year, a 20% increase since 2018, and pointed to Census data showing the county's population had grown 30% over the previous decade, according to Vanderbilt Health News. Vanderbilt also said at the time that Rutherford County had 53% fewer staffed hospital beds per resident than the average of Tennessee's other large counties.
Vanderbilt had sought state approval through the Health Services and Development Agency to build its own 42-bed hospital in Murfreesboro, a full-service facility that would have included emergency, obstetric, surgical and cardiac catheterization services. That earlier proposal followed a previous application that had been denied in August 2020 after opposition from Saint Thomas Rutherford, StoneCrest Medical Center and Williamson Medical Center, Vanderbilt Health News reported.
