Henry Ford Cottage is small,
but offers service close to home

This is the first in a series of profiles of the Pointes’ three hospitals.

Henry Ford Cottage Hospital is the smallest of the massive metro health-care system launched nearly a century ago by auto baron Henry Ford .

Cottage has a modest 87 beds, compared to its main campus Detroit parent, Henry Ford Hospital, which has 802. Still, the red-and-white brick building at 159 Kercheval at the top of the Hill in the Farms offers an intimate, neighborhood feel, and provides the same basic care as any large hospital.

"We have the training, talent and technology to provide the safest and best care possible to each patient we see," said Gust Bills, director of the Emergency Department at Henry Ford Cottage Hospital. "Several of our physicians have previously trained or provided care at Henry Ford Hospital's Level 1 trauma center in Detroit."

The Ford system now includes five hospitals and 22 medical centers across the metro area. It boasts 800 physicians and 12,600 employes and records 2.5 million patient visits a year, according to the Henry Ford website.

Cottage provides 24-hour emergency services, physical, pulmonary and cardiac rehabilitation, mental crisis care and counseling, radiation therapy for cancer treatment, a wound care center, a sleep lab and women’s diagnostic services.

The Women's Health department prioritizes community-based care, holding awareness seminars and screenings to reach out to neighborhood women. Basic services include mammograms, ultrasounds, breast biopsies to screen for cancer, bone densitometry x-ray devices to gauge osteoporosis risk, and counseling services for patients with abnormal screening results.

The rehabilitation unit contains three divisions. The Cottage Hospital Athletic Medicine Program (CHAMP), an outpatient program that treats sports injuries focuses on allowing athletes to return to sports as safely as possible. Outpatient Rehabilitation Services include physical, occupational and speech therapy, and allows discharged patients to continue redeveloping life skills following an injury or surgery. Inpatient Rehabilitation is offered to patients with serious illnesses or injuries and places them with a team of specialists.

The Center for Radiation Oncology at Cottage Hospital has an extensive support staff to care for cancer patients that includes oncologists, therapists, nurses, and a radiation physicist. Radiation services at Cottage Hospital are an offshoot of a greater whole, that is, they are affiliated with Henry Ford Health System’s Josephine Ford Cancer Center in Brownstown. The Center for Radiation Oncology offers a unique service – the Calypso 4-D system is a technology that ensures that radiation targets only diseased cancer tissue, rather than healthy cells. Cottage Hospital is the only location in metro Detroit to provide this particular cancer treatment – the nearest otherwise is in the University of Michigan Health System, according to Ford officials.

As of July 2009, the Emergency Room Department is serviced by several ambulances, that rush Grosse Pointe residents suffering from injury or illness to Cottage Hospital. While the most at-risk patients are directed to the main campus of Henry Ford Health System on West Grand Boulevard in Detroit, patients with chest pain, mental health crises, injuries, labor pains and strokes – some of the most common ailments in the Grosse Pointe community – are directed to the Cottage ER.

Cottage Hospital is a center for treating mental health crises, providing service for adults who have the intent to harm themselves or others, are unable to care for themselves, have a serious substance abuse program, or deal with grief, anxiety, depression, or psychosis. A team of psychiatrists, nurses, social workers and therapists are available, as well as a three-tiered program for treatment. This includes Psychiatric Intake Assessment and Referral Services, which in essence provides psychiatric diagnoses. 

Cottage was founded in 1918 by a collection of wealthy wives and daughters of Detroit-based industrialists, as a response towards treating area cases of the year’s deadly Spanish influenza epidemic. A house (“cottage”) was renovated into a basic hospital, and thus Cottage Hospital was named. The hospital moved to its current location on Kercheval in 1928, when patient need exceeded capacity.

The hospital continued to grow, to a bed capacity of 153. At that point, in 1986, Cottage Hospital became affiliated with Henry Ford Health System. In 1998, Bon Secours Health System, a Maryland-based operation, took over 70 percent of the hospital’s financials. However, in 2007, Henry Ford reassumed full control of Cottage Hospital.

Since, Henry Ford Cottage Hospital has worked on a $10-million expansion. This includes 20 new private rooms with modern amenities –valet parking, flat screen TVs, and concierge-style “guest services” that include bathrobes, slippers, and fresh flowers for admitted patients.
 

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