UPSCALE NAME

The former Graduate Hospital in Philadelphia will officially reopen today with a new medical mission and a more upscale name.

Penn Medicine at Rittenhouse - the campus is at 18th and Lombard Streets, about half a mile south of tony Rittenhouse Square - houses a 38-bed, long-term acute-care hospital, a 58-bed inpatient rehabilitation facility, a hospice unit, an ambulatory-surgery center, a pain-management center, and a radiology suite.

The facility, formerly owned by Tenet Healthcare, underwent $70 million in renovations. It is a joint project of the University of Pennsylvania Health System and Good Shepherd Rehabilitation Network, which is based in Allentown. Ultimately, more than 400 people will work at Penn Medicine at Rittenhouse.

Long-term acute care is for patients who are stable enough to leave the regular hospital, need complex care for 25 or more days, and are not yet up to the rigors of a rehabilitation hospital. It is generally more intensive than what is available to nursing-home patients.

While there are other long-term acute-care facilities in the area, this is the first venture into that level of care by Penn, already the region's largest nongovernmental employer. Sally Gammon, CEO of Good Shepherd Rehabilitation Network, believes the region is "underbedded" for this type of treatment. She said patients sometimes stay too long in the hospital, which is more expensive, because they can't find a more appropriate place to go.

Technically, calling the new campus Penn Medicine at Rittenhouse is a bit of a stretch. The City Planning Commission says the official boundary of the Rittenhouse Square neighborhood stops a block north of the hospital, at South Street.

But naming the new place after its own neighborhood presented another set of problems. Stephen Singer, manager of research for the Center City District, said most people who live there call the neighborhood the Graduate Hospital area or G-HO.

Michele Lieberman, a spokeswoman for the project, said the name "recognizes the historic affiliation beyond the local Philadelphia neighborhood to the city at large. It is a name that resonates with Philadelphians, but also provides a sense of proximity to patients and families who are not from Center City, as Penn patients come from throughout the Mid-Atlantic region."

Jennifer Reynolds, who does public relations for Friends of Rittenhouse Square, said the namers made a strategic decision. "Clearly, they are choosing a name that identifies them with prestige," she said.

The naming didn't stop at Rittenhouse. The various entities housed on the campus, including the two hospitals, will have their own names. The long-term acute-care hospital, for example, is Good Shepherd Penn Partners Specialty Hospital. The rehabilitation hospital is called Penn Institute for Rehabilitation Medicine. Gammon said licensing rules required separate names.

"It's a challenge," she said, "to name things where it makes sense."