A hospital within a hospital: An innovative pharmacy model to improve the continuum of care.

Purpose: To describe the implementation of a contracted pharmacy service model for a co-located long-term acute care hospital (LTAC).

Summary: Historically, most LTACs have been free-standing healthcare facilities, but there is an increased trend towards the co-located LTAC ("hospital within a hospital") model. Co-located LTACs represent a solution for the management of patient throughput within a health system, with optimized bed capacity at the host hospital, increased revenue under a prospective payment system, and reduced readmission rates.