What it means to work at an LTACH: clinical careers at RML Specialty Hospital. * June 24, 2026 RML Specialty Hospital is a not-for-profit Long-Term Acute Care Hospital (LTACH) with campuses in Chicago and Hinsdale, Illinois. This is not a standard hospital, and the work here is not standard hospital work. If you are a registered nurse, respiratory therapist, or allied health professional weighing LTACH nursing careers in Illinois, this article explains what the role actually involves. What is a Long-Term Acute Care Hospital - and why it changes how you practice. A Long-Term Acute Care Hospital treats patients who are too medically complex to leave the hospital setting but no longer require an intensive care unit. These are patients recovering from prolonged critical illness - ventilator dependence, complex wounds, multi-system conditions - who need continuous, hospital-level care measured in weeks rather than days. That single difference reshapes daily practice. On a standard ICU or acute care floor, you often hand a patient off within hours or days and rarely see the full recovery. At an LTACH, you follow the same patient through the entire arc: the slow wean off a ventilator, the first time they sit up, the day they walk out. The pace rewards clinical judgment and continuity over rapid turnover. For many clinicians, that is the heart of any honest comparison of LTACH vs hospital nursing - fewer admissions per shift, deeper patient relationships, and a multidisciplinary team that stays consistent across the stay. RML is built specifically for this work. As a not-for-profit hospital, its clinical decisions are driven by patient need rather than volume. Its team includes more than 70 physicians and 600 employees, with physicians on-site 24 hours a day, seven days a week, so changes in a patient's condition are addressed in real time rather than waiting for a callback. RML Specialty Hospital is partners with Loyola University Health System and Advocate Health Care, connecting its staff to broader clinical resources and expertise. For professionals seeking clinical careers at a not-for-profit hospital, that combination of mission, continuity, and on-site physician support defines the environment. Clinical roles at RML Specialty Hospital. Across its Chicago and Hinsdale campuses, RML hires for a defined set of clinical and allied health roles: * Registered Nurses (RN): RNs carry smaller, higher-acuity assignments and play a central role in care planning for medically complex patients. Both campuses hire RNs - nursing jobs in Chicago, Illinois, and at its Hinsdale campus are posted as they open. * Respiratory Therapists (RRT): Because RML treats more ventilator patients than any LTACH in the nation, respiratory therapist LTACH jobs here center on advanced ventilator weaning and airway management rather than routine floor coverage. * Rehabilitation Therapists (PT/OT/SLP): Physical, occupational, and speech therapists rebuild strength, mobility, and communication across long recovery timelines. * Pharmacists: Clinical pharmacists manage complex medication regimens and antibiotic stewardship for critically ill patients. * Dietitians: Registered dietitians direct nutrition care that often determines the pace of ventilator weaning and wound healing. RML Specialty Hospital also draw on psychologists and spiritual care professionals as part of an interdisciplinary team, and RML Specialty Hospital post only the roles RML actually staffs. The programs you will work within. The work at RML is organized around specialized clinical programs. These are what you will practice, day to day: * Ventilator Weaning: RML's ventilator weaning program is the largest in the United States, and weaning is central to its care model rather than an ancillary service. * Advanced Wound Care: Its advanced wound care teams manage chronic, surgical, and trauma-related wounds that standard facilities are not equipped to treat. * Stroke & Neurologic Recovery: Interdisciplinary teams help patients regain function after stroke and other neurologic events. * Organ Transplant Recovery: Specialized post-transplant care for patients who need extended hospital-level monitoring. * Ventricular Assist Device (VAD) Program: Cardiac recovery support for patients living with mechanical circulatory support. * Medically Complex Care: Coordinated treatment for patients managing several overlapping conditions at once. Each program presents a different clinical challenge, and most clinicians at RML work across more than one over the course of their tenure. Frequently asked questions about clinical careers at RML. How do I apply for a clinical position at RML Specialty Hospital? All clinical positions are posted on the RML Careers page, and candidates apply directly through its online application portal. You do not need a recruiter or staffing agency to apply, applications go straight to RML's hiring team. Open roles for both the Chicago and Hinsdale campuses are listed in the same portal. What clinical specialties does RML hire for? RML hires registered nurses, respiratory therapists, rehabilitation therapists (physical, occupational, and speech), pharmacists, and clinical dietitians, along with physicians and advanced practice providers. Both its Chicago and Hinsdale campuses recruit across these disciplines. Because RML Specialty Hospital is a long-term acute care hospital, most clinical roles center on medically complex, high-acuity patients rather than short-stay general care. What is it like to work as a nurse at a Long-Term Acute Care Hospital? It is different from acute care floor nursing in one fundamental way: time. You care for fewer patients at higher acuity, and you stay with them for weeks, not hours. You see the full recovery arc - the ventilator wean, the first steps, the discharge home. The model is genuinely team-based, with physicians on-site around the clock and therapists, pharmacists, and dietitians working the same patients alongside you. For nurses who want depth and continuity over constant turnover, LTACH nursing offers a kind of practice that acute hospital nursing rarely allows. Does RML Specialty Hospital offer shift flexibility for nursing staff? Yes. Because RML provides hospital-level care 24 hours a day, its nursing teams work across day, evening, and night rotations. Specific shift lengths and scheduling options are listed with each open position on the Careers page. How to apply. RML posts all current clinical openings for both the Chicago and Hinsdale campuses on its Careers page. To apply, view current openings and apply through its secure online portal - no recruiter or staffing agency required.

Brennen Johnston shares career update. Brennen Johnston has stepped into a new role as radiology director-enterprise advanced cardiac imaging for Advocate Health. "This opportunity allows me to continue growing advanced cardiac imaging programs across our entire organization. I'm proud to be working alongside incredible physicians, technologists, leaders and teammates who care deeply about our patients," he shared on LinkedIn. "Anyone who knows me knows how passionate I am about cardiac imaging, education, quality and building great teams. I'm thankful for the mentors, colleagues and friends who have invested in me along the way, and I'm excited for what we can accomplish together in this next chapter." "The title may be new, but the mission remains the same: improve patient care, provide top-notch imaging, support our teams, grow our impact, and keep pushing our field forward," he added. The Advocate Health LinkedIn profile states that it "is redefining how, when and where care is delivered to help people live well. We're providing equitable care for all in our communities and using our combined strength and expertise to deliver better outcomes at a lower cost." People on the Move. Submit yourself or someone else to be featured in its People on the Move category! Accepted file types: jpg, jpeg, png, Max. file size: 2 MB.

Can ai-enabled outreach tools reshape how hospitals close care gaps? Analysis | By G Hatfield | June 01, 2026 Advocate Health's responsible approach is enabling the health system to follow up and treat patients with hypertension. Key takeaways. At the end of 2025, Advocate Health partnered with Hippocratic AI to help reach patients who were seen for elevated blood pressure in the hospital, and then didn't return for a follow up. The health system was able to reach out to 15,000 patients with hypertension care gaps to share why it is important to monitor hypertension and to walk them through how to properly check their blood pressure at home and provide that reading to their care teams. Leaders collaborated with marketing and consumer experience teams to write the script for the tool so that it complies with internal criteria and includes an introduction to the patient to tell them they are interacting with an AI agent or virtual assistant calling on behalf of the care team. As workforce shortages persist and CNOs brainstorm new ways to rework staffing models, the integration of AI into workflows shows great promise. However, it must be implemented correctly for it to live up to that promise. At Advocate Health, leaders are discovering the benefits of AI-enabled outreach tools and how to incorporate them into the broader AI strategy. According to Andy McWilliams, VP of AI clinical product development and co-chair of AI governance at Advocate Health, the health system's goal with AI is to, first and foremost, implement it responsibly. "We want to take an intentional, responsible approach to implementing AI and as we think about that from a workforce strategy standpoint, generally across the board we have a number of shortages across many different disciplines," McWilliams said. "We think of AI, when implemented appropriately and responsibly, as a force multiplier for our teams." Most recently, the health system has deployed a conversational AI tool to help reach patients suffering from hypertension. "[This tool] provides an example of where AI, when thoughtfully woven into workflows, can really offload some of the busy work [and] some of the more routine work so that our teammates can focus on more complex issues and focus on more time with the patients themselves," McWilliams said. Addressing care gaps. At the end of 2025, Advocate Health partnered with Hippocratic AI to help reach patients who were seen for elevated blood pressure in the hospital, and then didn't return for a follow up. "Elevated blood pressure [is a] very common condition," McWilliams said. "It's one of those conditions where we have very good evidence-based treatment guidelines, but across the board in the United States, untreated hypertension remains a very prevalent condition." Since the health system doesn't have the resources to be able to reach out to every patient with a care gap, they worked with nurse leaders and teams to build the AI agent that meets their criteria internally, McWilliams explained. That collaboration ensured that the tool passed the organization's criteria for safety and patient experience. The health system was able to reach out to 15,000 patients with hypertension care gaps to share why it is important to monitor hypertension and, when possible, to walk them through how to properly check their blood pressure at home and provide that reading to their care teams. The tool can also provide patients with resources for where patients can get their blood pressure checked in their communities, and then follow up with them to obtain that blood pressure reading. "As you have a conversation with a patient, oftentimes things will come up where we need to escalate that conversation or issue to our teams, and that was part of what we baked in and tested in this process," McWilliams said. "[We wanted] to make sure that as we uncovered issues we were able to get them to the right teammate at the right time so that the issue could be addressed." Both nurses and nurse informaticists were involved in building this pilot program, with nurses leading the charge as the end users incorporating the tool into their workflows. As the organization looks to scale the program, the nursing informatics team is critical for the design building process and for thinking through the workflow implications and training needs, McWilliams explained. "The important [thing] in any AI implementation is that last mile of implementation and making sure that it truly fits into the workflows and is actually a helpful aid and actually becomes that force multiplier, and isn't a barrier that sits in the workflow or creates friction," McWilliams said. Quelling skepticism. To ensure patient understanding and consent when using the AI agent, leaders collaborated with marketing and consumer experience teams to write the script for the tool so that it complies with internal criteria. The script also includes an introduction to the patient to tell them they are interacting with an AI agent or virtual assistant calling on behalf of the care team. McWilliams emphasized that the number of patients who don't want to interact with the AI agent is a smaller percentage than expected, which McWilliams attributes to transparency. "We've done a great deal of work engaging with our patients and other stakeholders across the health system to understand what it means to them for us to be transparent and accountable as we approach AI responsibly," McWilliams said. "[We're also] thinking through how [to] do more than just introduce via an AI agent that they're speaking with AI, but also provide additional content for folks and education more broadly on our approach." Gearing up for more. Initially, the pilot was meant to inform the decision to make this proactive outreach approach a standard part of care, McWilliams explained. The health system also wanted to see if it would improve care access along with the patient and teammate experience. "We were able to close care gaps for around 1,200 patients and connect with a larger number than that," McWilliams said. The pilot also helped the organization get the patients who couldn't report a blood pressure reading or those with continued hypertension to work with the centralized nursing teams to help treat them or resolve other issues that might have come up in conversations. "To us, that is very powerful, because that spoke to the improved access that comes from that force multiplier, as our teammates are able to address those more complex issues, where AI was offloading more routine tasks," McWilliams said. Patients also filled out surveys to share their feedback on the pilot, which according to McWilliams, has been positive. "The ability to ask questions and not feel like they were taking up one of our teammates' time because they could ask unlimited questions, and feeling that the experience was one that was very positive, helped them feel that they had a sense of agency around controlling their blood pressure," McWilliams said. In the future, the health system is exploring how to address other chronic conditions where proactive outreach and education are related to improving outcomes, such as heart failure, diabetes, and potentially COPD, McWilliams explained. "Those chronic conditions are highly prevalent [and] we have fairly good data to show that being on the right medications and having access points between your clinical visits improve your outcomes," McWilliams said. However, McWilliams emphasized that not every use case requires leveraging AI. "[We are] being very disciplined in selecting the right use cases," McWilliams said, "and then following that very methodical, intentional approach to make sure that we wire things up appropriately and we have the right escalation measures in place [and] the right workflows on the back end, and get to that point where, as we saw with hypertension, we get that force multiplier and improve access and experience." G Hatfield is the CNO editor for HealthLeaders.