Hospital Gets New Name, Pain Center Director

The new signs haven’t arrived yet, but it’s official: the former Northwest Arkansas Rehabilitation Hospital in Fayetteville is now HealthSouth Rehabilitation Hospital.

The name change reflects the new ownership interest by HealthSouth Corp., a publicly held company based in Birmingham, Ala. HealthSouth recently purchased Continental Medical Systems, which previously held an interest in the Fayetteville rehab hospital.

Washington Regional Medical System remains a joint venture partner in the hospital, a position it has held since the 60-bed facility opened in 1991.

Among the services HealthSouth Rehabilitation Hospital provides is treatment for chronic pain through its Diagnostic and Therapeutic Pain Medicine Center. The center has a new medical director, Dr. William Ackerman, a board-certified pain specialist who most recently practiced at Columbia Doctors Hospital’s Pain Care Center in Little Rock.

Ackerman is a graduate of the University of Louisville in Kentucky. He did his internship at Good Samaritan Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio, and his residency at the University of Kentucky. Ackerman completed a fellowship in pain medication at Texas Tech University and started the Chronic Pain Service at William Beaumont Army Medical Center in El Paso, Texas.

Since HealthSouth’s acquisition, the local facility has signed on enthusiastically with the corporation’s “pulling the wagon” philosophy, which promotes the idea of everyone, from the top administrator to part-time aides, working together. The hospital’s top administrator, Dennis Shelby, supports the idea and has taken on various tasks outside his usual responsibilities — even so far as to help clean up the parking lot.