“We see this as a reaffirmation of our very high-quality program,” says Jim O’Conner, Executive Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer. “It’s good to have an outside source agree with us.”
There’s little evidence of the St. Charles Hospital’s humble beginnings more than a century ago, when four Sisters of the Order of the Daughters of Wisdom accepted 24 homeless children with developmental and physical disabilities into their care. The hospital’s expertise grew during the height of the polio epidemic, when 400 children were in residence and when it opened its Outpatient Orthopedic Clinic in 1948 to provide monitoring and care for children who were able to live at home. As devastating childhood illnesses became less common, St. Charles Hospital enhanced its focus on the adult population, fastidiously advancing to a full-service, acute care hospital featuring three Centers of Excellence. One such center includes the team of experts that promote collaboration and use the most advanced surgical procedures in the field of orthopedics. Today, St. Charles Hospital’s innovative orthopedic program is tailored to meet each individual’s specific needs. Four new high-tech operating rooms opened late last year to accommodate the cutting-edge procedures the hospital’s orthopedic surgeons perform. Its focus on orthopedics and rehabilitation sets St. Charles Hospital apart in five areas of expertise: total hip and knee joint replacement; spine surgery; sports medicine; hand, wrist and elbow surgery; and shoulder surgery.
Leading the Way
St. Charles Hospital’s orthopedic department accounts for nearly half of all surgeries performed in the 231-bed hospital. Led by both long-time and newly recruited surgeons — many of whom are affiliated with teaching hospitals on Long Island and in New York City — the program highlights a range of accomplishments that include “firsts” for both its local community and beyond. Among these are its achievements in computer-assisted navigation systems that result in shorter surgeries and smaller incisions with reduced bleeding, more precise alignment of prostheses and quicker healing. In 2007, St. Charles Hospital became the second hospital in the world to use computer navigation for reverse ball and socket total shoulder replacement. Two years earlier, it became the first hospital on Long Island to use that technology for hip replacement surgery and was the first in the Northeast to use it for total knee replacement surgery. It was also the first hospital in Suffolk County to perform gender-specific total knee replacement surgery.
It doesn’t stop there. St. Charles Hospital provides both inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation programs for adults, adolescents and children. As the first rehabilitation facility on Long Island to receive accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation for Rehabilitation Facilities, its network includes the most technologically advanced rehabilitation techniques for patients following orthopedic surgery, with nine outpatient facilities available on Long Island.
“Rehabilitation following orthopedic surgery is critically important. It is necessary to ensure optimum range of motion and to restore strength,” says O’Conner. “No matter what procedure a patient has done, our ability to hand them from their orthopedic surgeon to rehabilitation within the same facility is a major advantage.”
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