Image courtesy of Knoxville Rehabilitation Hospital

Knoxville Rehabilitation Hospital has announced that it has been named a Lifepoint Health National Quality Leader. The hospital is operated through a tri-venture partnership between Tennova Healthcare, UT Medical and Lifepoint Rehabilitation, an operating division of Lifepoint Health.

The National Quality Leader designation recognizes hospitals within the Lifepoint Health system that have enrolled in the Lifepoint National Quality Program and succeeded in transforming their culture of safety and achieving high standards of quality care, performance improvement and patient engagement.

“I am incredibly proud of our caregivers for making this recognition possible,” said Jason Draper, CEO, Knoxville Rehabilitation Hospital. “This is one more affirmation of our team’s commitment to providing patient-centered rehabilitation care and evidences the quality-driven culture we’ve built together.”

Knoxville Rehabilitation Hospital is a 57-bed inpatient acute rehabilitation hospital dedicated to the treatment of individuals recovering from stroke, brain injury, neurological conditions, trauma, spinal cord injury, amputation, orthopedic injury and other illnesses and injuries. The hospital is accredited by The Joint Commission and by the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF) for its stroke specialty program. It was recently awarded on Newsweek’s list of America’s Best Physical Rehabilitation Centers 2025 and has been ranked in the top 10 percent of inpatient rehabilitation facilities (IRFs) that qualified to be ranked in the IRF database of Netsmart Technologies, Inc. (Netsmart) for the last four years. Knoxville Rehabilitation Hospital was previously awarded Lifepoint Health’s 2024 Operations Excellence Award for the company’s rehabilitation division.

To achieve Lifepoint Health National Quality Leader designation, the Knoxville Rehabilitation Hospital team worked to implement a number of best practices and launch new initiatives to engage patients and families, enhance patient safety and improve quality care. One element of their quality and safety pathway included launching new stroke support systems and integration, including support groups for stroke patients during their stay and following discharge.

“Knoxville Rehabilitation Hospital is the first of Lifepoint Rehabilitation’s hospitals to pursue and achieve the Lifepoint Health National Quality Leader designation, and I couldn’t be prouder of Jason and his team for their hard work to get here,” said Russ Bailey, president, Lifepoint Rehabilitation. “This team consistently exceeds industry standards for patient experience, quality of care and safety, and this recognition highlights their truly exceptional leadership. Congratulations to the Knoxville Rehabilitation Hospital team for this well-deserved honor.”

When hospitals enroll in the National Quality Program, they begin working with Lifepoint quality experts to evaluate and strengthen their quality programs and processes. Following an initial evaluation, the hospital creates a plan and begins to employ changes that will help it achieve quality improvement benchmarks and establish long-term solutions to sustain its results.

In addition to evaluating common quality care and patient safety metrics, the Lifepoint National Quality Program focuses on foundational elements required to sustain quality care, including committed leadership, systems to ensure continuous performance and process improvement, and a culture dedicated to safety. Lifepoint Health National Quality Leader designation denotes those hospitals that have achieved a broad range of criteria in each of these areas and demonstrate a capacity to continuously measure and improve quality and patient safety.

“Tennova Healthcare and Knoxville Rehabilitation Hospital share a common and steadfast focus to ensure our patients receive exceptional care in a wide variety of settings from emergent situations to comprehensive inpatient care and continuity through the rehabilitation process,” said Tony Benton, chief executive officer, Tennova Healthcare. “We congratulate the entire KRH team for their hard work, dedication and deserved recognition in providing quality care to our shared friends and neighbors who call East Tennessee home.”

“This achievement speaks to the exceptional clinical expertise, innovation and compassion demonstrated by the team at Knoxville Rehabilitation Hospital,” said Dr. Keith Gray, President and CEO, UT Medical. “As a proud partner, we congratulate the hospital on this national recognition and remain committed to advancing high-quality rehabilitation care for patients throughout East Tennessee."

For more information about Knoxville Rehabilitation Hospital, visit KnoxvilleRehabHospital.com.