Print This Page Shepherd Center Celebrates 25 Years of Being a Model System of Care for Spinal Cord Injury October 11, 2007 To be designated a Model System, a facility must undergo a rigorous application process to show it meets high standards for multidisciplinary care, long-term follow-up, and collaborative and site-specific research. The facility also must collect, manage and analyze data on patients during and after treatment. Shepherd must re-apply for the designation every five years and was once again named a Model System of Care in 2006. The hospital will receive $2 million from NIDRR for research during the current term. Shepherd was only seven years old when it first applied for the Model System of Care designation in 1982. The Center had just moved from rented space to its current location on Peachtree Road, and it was virtually unheard of for an organization so young to receive the designation. “Getting this designation was huge,” said Lesley M. Hudson, MA, Shepherd’s clinical research manager and co-director of the Georgia Model Spinal Cord Injury System project. Hudson wrote the original application. “Being named a Model System of Care gave us credibility and put us on the map nationally and internationally.” The continuum of care Shepherd patients receive is the core component of the designation. As part of the grant, Shepherd Center has trained first responders in Georgia in taking the initial critical steps to maximize recovery. That focus continues during rehabilitation and after discharge. “The fact that we’ve consistently received the designation demonstrates our commitment to maintaining a full line of service from injury to a lifetime of follow up,” said David Apple, Jr., MD, Shepherd’s medical director emeritus. “The patients know they will get the latest in treatment and that we are consistently trying to improve upon outcomes of the injury.” Hudson and Apple agree that earning Model System status laid the groundwork for Shepherd to build its top-notch research department with a national reputation. “Having competed for so many years has allowed us to establish a research institute that has grown exponentially,” Apple said. “It provided the foundation for building a research department that has been a leader not only in care research, but also cure research.” The next application for renewal is due in March 2011. Hudson estimated that as many as 36 hospitals will compete for the 14 available slots. “The odds are in our favor, but we can’t sit back and expect it,” she said. “They keep raising the bar, and we have to stretch to meet it.”
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