St. John’s Hospital Quality Data
“I really couldn’t see myself sitting at home for eight weeks.”
da Vinci® Surgical System patient Jean Odell
Jean Odell knew she needed to make a change. “I had these terrible cramps, even after a uterine ablation which was supposed to end the problem,” she recalls. When her doctor suggested a hysterectomy, Jean was worried about the recuperation time. “I knew it would be a relief to have it done. But it was not as though I would be gone for a week. I knew it would be difficult to let go of my work responsibilities for a long stretch of time. But then I found out about robotic surgery.”
HealthEast’s robot-assisted da Vinci® Surgical System allows doctors to perform complex surgeries with great precision and control, and in a much less invasive way than traditional surgeries. In Jean’s case, it meant a hysterectomy with a manageable recovery timeline. “I thought, being back to work within two to three weeks wouldn’t be so bad. It’s still a major surgery, but once I learned that it was less invasive, it put me at a much higher comfort level.”
Jean decided to have her hysterectomy at St. John’s Hospital on December 14. “I didn’t sleep a whole lot the night before — I was a little nervous. But from the time I walked in the door and met the gal in the admitting office, I felt at ease. I never knew there were so many people involved in a one-hour surgery, but every single one of them made me feel so comfortable.”
“When they were wheeling me in, I was really interested in seeing the robotic machine,” recalls Jean, “but once I got a sedative to relax me, well, all I remember is waking up. What’s remarkable is how I had my surgery in the morning, and I was walking by dinnertime. The staff was so kind about checking on me regularly, and would ask every couple of hours how I rated my pain on a scale of one to 10. I was never more than a three or a four.”
“I left the hospital on the 15th — the very next day — and I felt pretty good walking out of there,” said Jean. “People I know who had traditional hysterectomies said, ‘Be sure to take it easy, you’ll be so tired.’ But I never was. I started working from home the day after that on a laptop, and went back to work full time the beginning of the next month. I could tell when I needed to take a break here and there, but for the most part, I got right back to my life.”
HealthEast® Clinic Quality Data
Seizing Opportunity in Technology: Dr. Eric English
“The da Vinci® Surgical System has been around since 2001, and very few people used it for OB/GYN purposes back then,” said Dr. Eric English. In fact, St. John’s Hospital was one of the first hospitals in the Twin Cities to offer the state–of–the–art system for treating gynecology conditions.
Dr. English lists just a few of the da Vinci system’s advantages: “There’s a much lower occurrence of wound infection or dehiscence, where a surgical opening re-opens. The da Vinci system makes it easy to do things that are quite difficult to do laparoscopically. It also lowers blood loss, decreases the chance of future problems, and lowers the amount of pain medication that people require after surgery.”
“I first watched surgeons at St. John’s use this for urology operations in 2003; now I transfer patients to St. John’s just to have this device to use. I’ve seen how much better patients respond after using this system.” In addition, Dr. English reports that surgeries such as hysterectomies, which used to require up to six weeks of recovery time, now often only require about two weeks before people are back on their feet. “I have worked around the country with dozens of different operating room teams on da Vinci casework, and the staff at St. John’s is the most professional and experienced I've seen. The whole team is best-in-class.”
