A Joint Effort

Illini Campus offers one-stop care for total joint replacement surgery

SILVIS, Illinois -Donald Sproul felt like being active; only his knees didn’t. Increasingly, it became apparent that the knees that had served him for 75 years needed replacing.

A visit to Chicago was a deciding factor: He couldn’t walk Navy Pier and after disembarking from a wedding reception cruise, he struggled to make it from the boat to the taxicab. “That’s when I decided to do something," he says. “I was in pain and increasingly limited in my movement.”

Last November, he had one knee replaced at the Genesis Medical Center, Illini Campus and appreciated the easy transition of receiving all of his care under the same roof -- the surgery, hospital stay, skilled nursing care and physical rehabilitation at Illini Restorative Care and then outpatient physical therapy from Illini Rehabilitative Services.

Instead of going straight home after his several-day stay in the hospital, he went to the adjoining and newly renovated Illini Restorative Care. There, he received about a week of skilled nursing and occupational and physical therapy in a 22-bed Medicare-certified skilled nursing care unit. It’s one of four levels of senior residential care on the Illini Campus.

The experience went so well he came back for a second knee replacement in January. “Illini is a great place to have joint replacement surgery,” says Sproul of East Moline. “For each knee surgery, I went straight from the surgical floor to the nursing home area without leaving the building. It was seamless and reassuring.

“I knew if I had a complication, I would be close to the hospital. The doctor made visits, and my wife didn’t have to worry about trying to take care of me at home.”

His wife, Nancy, also appreciated the convenience of one-stop care. “Having him at Illini Restorative Care was a godsend for us,” she says. “He had medical experts and therapists close by and was in a bed that could be elevated – something that we wouldn’t have had at home. Plus, he got therapy twice a day. If he had come home right after the hospital, he would have gotten therapy only three times a week. It really worked well.”

Convenience and comfort

Sproul is one of many joint-replacement surgery patients who like the convenience of staying at Illini Restorative Care after their hospital stay: They know they will receive more immediate attention than they would if they were recuperating at home.

The Illini Campus fulfills their needs with a full spectrum of care from before-surgery education to after-surgery rehabilitation. Physicians of Orthopaedic and Rheumatology Associates (ORA) perform the total joint replacement surgeries at the Illini hospital and also have office hours at the Illini Campus.

The physicians of ORA also perform total joint replacements on the Genesis West Central Park campus, where there is a newly renovated seventh floor Orthopaedics unit.

The ORA practice records more than 100,000 patients visits each year at offices in Bettendorf, Davenport, Moline, Silvis, Muscatine, Durant, DeWitt and Geneseo.

“Some people who come to the hospital for total hip and knee replacement surgery choose to go directly home after their hospital stay and receive their therapy on an outpatient basis,” says Roger Brannan, Administrator of Senior Services. “Others choose to begin the restorative process by coming to Illini Restorative Care and staying in our Medicare wing, where they can use their Medicare Part A benefits and receive direct nursing care and physical and  occupational therapy before they return home.”

Brannan added, “Most of them are dealing with pain after surgery and feel more comfortable receiving around-the-clock care from licensed nurses. They get help managing their pain and can receive therapy at the bedside rather than traveling back and forth from home to an outpatient clinic to receive therapy. They have no worries about meal preparation or housekeeping because we provide all that for them. Generally, they stay a week to three weeks.”

A care continuum

Before total joint replacement surgery, patients are offered pre-surgery education where they receive information and can meet with nurses, dietitians, occupational and physical therapists and representatives from social services and Genesis Home Medical Equipment. They learn how to prepare for convalescing after surgery.

“It’s very beneficial,” says physical therapist Jon Thoreson, Inpatient Rehabilitation Supervisor, at Illini Campus. “The patients’ comfort and knowledge level have increased when I see them in the hospital after surgery.”

A hospital stay after joint replacement surgery is typically 3-5 days, and therapy begins the first day after surgery.

“I start them in therapy at the hospital,” Thoreson says, “and then I get to see their progression whether they go to Illini Restorative Care or come back to visit the Illini Campus for outpatient therapy. The continuum of care is really there for our patients. We’re all one department, and we flow back and forth and always have an idea of how the patients are doing, whatever stage of rehabilitation they are in."

Staying at Illini Restorative Care in the days after joint replacement surgery is the best choice for many, Thoreson says. “Everyone wants to go home, but some patients don’t have the activity tolerance yet to do it at home or they’re just not moving well enough to go home and function. I always tell them I’d much rather them go to Restorative Care and succeed then to go home and struggle. We want them to have a good outcome.”

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