New Approach Helps To Speed Recovery After Surgery

When you go to the hospital, you are on a mission: to get better soon.

Middlesex Hospital also wants you to heal quickly, and it is now using Enhanced Recovery After Surgery to achieve early recovery after surgical procedures.

Enhanced Recovery After Surgery, brought to the Hospital by Dr. Jonathan Blancaflor, is a technique that relies on different areas of medicine working cooperatively, making early recovery possibly by maintaining preoperative organ function and by reducing profound stress response following surgery. This involves providing preoperative counseling, encouraging proper nutrition and exercise, standardizing painkiller and anesthetic regimens, and carefully managing fluids. Doctors who use this technique also expect patients to begin to eat and move around just hours after their surgeries rather than remain in bed.

“Bringing Enhanced Recovery After Surgery care to patients here has been a very exciting process,” Blancaflor says. “It is very gratifying to see them recover more comfortably and quickly.”

Working with the Enhanced Recovery After Surgery Society, Middlesex Hospital began using Enhanced Recovery After Surgery in the fall of 2015 with some colorectal surgery patients. Today, some gynecology patients also benefit from parts of the program, and the Hospital will soon begin using the technique with patients who require total joint replacement. On average, the technique reduces a patient’s hospital stay by two days for colorectal surgery and reduces their reliance on opioids after surgery.

“People are amazed how quickly they return to normal function,” says Patricia Ahlquist, a registered nurse and the Hospital’s quality coordinator.

Joe Biegaj, of Clinton, is one of those patients.

In November, Biegaj arrived at the Hospital for a surgery due to diverticulitis. Prior to his surgery date, he was told what to expect. The surgery was done robotically. He was discharged from the Hospital in two and a half days and said he didn’t need to take anything for pain after his release.

“It was incredibly quick,” Biegaj said.

Ahlquist says the Hospital’s overall experience using Enhanced Recovery After Surgery has been good and patient satisfaction has been high.

“It’s been a big commitment from many departments in the hospital and well worth while,” she said.