Vinny
08-17-2014, 06:42 PM
My wife recently had a hip replacement at the Villages Regional Hospital. Coming from the NYC area where hospitals are old and poorly staffed with nurses who are English language challenged and over worked to the point that they either never responded or responded much later, to my request for assistance. What was supposed to be a two day stay turned into an 8 day stay in quarantine due to a staff infection I picked up from one of the medical people there. They were the only ones that came near me or touched me. After I go infected was when they decided to take proper precautions to protect themselves. :)
Anyway, back to the VRH. The amount of work they did to make sure that no one was admitted with a staff infection was impressive. My wife's surgeon was offering the latest method of hip replacement called anterior, that minimizes the restrictions placed on hip replacement patients. He had to take a lot of additional training and the Joint Center in the VRH had the special table and sterilization equipment needed to perform it safely. The infection rate for hip replacements is about 1-3% nationwide. In the VRH, it is less than 1% over the last 12 months.
They had a well planned program that gave my wife a lot of individual attention for the 4 days she spent there. She rarely went an hour without someone dropping in to see her, do something or just check on her pain level. The two nurses, Alex and Brittany were fantastic and spent a lot of time calming my wife down when she saw them giving her transfusions of her own blood. This was her first surgery so she was very scared of the whole process.
The VRH staff made sure that the patient was aware of all their medications, side effects and even stayed in the room with my wife when she was given a new medication to make sure that she did not have any side effects. They were super. Greg, who is the lead nurse for the Join Center dropped by a few times to make sure all was well. He acted as a central contact point for any type of problem There was a woman who took care of arranging the after care of my wife and dealt with our insurance company to get approval for visiting nurses and physical therapist as well as the walker and other equipment needed.
Although not all rooms are like this, my wife was given their largest room. It was bigger than two of our rooms in our house. It had a couch and enough room to have a party. There was also a recliner where my wife spent most of her days in comfort. Despite three IVs in her, she did not have any bruises when they removed them. They made my wife comfortable and eased all of her fears. For that I am very grateful. It has been about 7 years since I was last in a hospital and do not know if this level of care is standard all around the country but it was certainly over and beyond any other experience I had in a hospital.
Anyway, back to the VRH. The amount of work they did to make sure that no one was admitted with a staff infection was impressive. My wife's surgeon was offering the latest method of hip replacement called anterior, that minimizes the restrictions placed on hip replacement patients. He had to take a lot of additional training and the Joint Center in the VRH had the special table and sterilization equipment needed to perform it safely. The infection rate for hip replacements is about 1-3% nationwide. In the VRH, it is less than 1% over the last 12 months.
They had a well planned program that gave my wife a lot of individual attention for the 4 days she spent there. She rarely went an hour without someone dropping in to see her, do something or just check on her pain level. The two nurses, Alex and Brittany were fantastic and spent a lot of time calming my wife down when she saw them giving her transfusions of her own blood. This was her first surgery so she was very scared of the whole process.
The VRH staff made sure that the patient was aware of all their medications, side effects and even stayed in the room with my wife when she was given a new medication to make sure that she did not have any side effects. They were super. Greg, who is the lead nurse for the Join Center dropped by a few times to make sure all was well. He acted as a central contact point for any type of problem There was a woman who took care of arranging the after care of my wife and dealt with our insurance company to get approval for visiting nurses and physical therapist as well as the walker and other equipment needed.
Although not all rooms are like this, my wife was given their largest room. It was bigger than two of our rooms in our house. It had a couch and enough room to have a party. There was also a recliner where my wife spent most of her days in comfort. Despite three IVs in her, she did not have any bruises when they removed them. They made my wife comfortable and eased all of her fears. For that I am very grateful. It has been about 7 years since I was last in a hospital and do not know if this level of care is standard all around the country but it was certainly over and beyond any other experience I had in a hospital.