How HCA HealthONE Swedish is transforming patient recovery
When Robin Pearce helped to establish the Mobility Project at HCA HealthONE Swedish in late 2024, she had no idea she would see the results up close and personal.
Hospital patients are healthier and go home faster if they move around during their stay.
“When you don’t move, you open yourself up for lots of complications, such as blood clots, pneumonia and pressure sores,” Robin, who serves as the quality manager for HCA HealthONE Swedish’s trauma department, said.
Even patients in very serious conditions, such as on a ventilator in the trauma intensive care unit (ICU), can get moving with the right kind of help. Being mobile can mean less sedation, fewer complications, faster removal of ventilator tubes - which adds up to less time in ICU and a quicker, healthier return home.
The hospital's team – from leadership to surgeons to nursing to the therapy colleagues — in the trauma ICU — were 100% on board with the Mobility Project. The plan required rethinking some traditional strategies, such as decreasing the amount of sedation needed for a ventilator patient, which have all been a success.
Robin found out for herself exactly how successful. Her husband, Ken, 63, has a goal to compete in a triathlon in every U.S. state. So far, he’s finished triathlons in 42 states. This summer, he was one week away from state number 43 and was training hard. Ken was out on a concrete biking path, riding, when a bag tied to the handlebars became entangled in his wheel. He pitched forward, landing right on his face. He broke his neck, his cheekbones, his palate, his jaw, his teeth and both sides of his nose. Even his bike was broken in two.
After being found on the path by passersby, taken to a community hospital and then he was then transferred to HCA HealthONE Swedish.
He quickly underwent successful surgery by Dr. Mario Imola, a board-certified facial and reconstructive plastic surgeon. Ken’s care was also coordinated by Dr. Emmett McGuire, a board-certified expert in general surgery and surgical critical care medicine.
“My face was not pretty when I got here,” Ken said. “But now I almost look like I did before.”
Big key to Ken’s success? The Mobility Project.
An hour after waking up from surgery, his care team had him moving and he was walking an hour after having his breathing tube removed. Ken walked 100 feet on the first day, which his care team could track using the 10-foot markers the Mobility Project team had posted in the trauma ICU halls.
“The doctors and nurses were fantastic,” Robin said. “But the therapists are really the heroes of this story.”
As Ken progressed, the physical therapists even took him outside so he could practice walking on grass and uneven ground. The occupational therapist even let him make a grilled cheese sandwich in the kitchen for practice – “the best meal of my hospitalization,” Ken said. The speech therapists helped him resume making everyday decisions such as balancing a checkbook and organizing medications.
“Because Ken was moved and grooved so much, he got to rehab faster, which meant he got to come home that much faster,” Robin said.
Ken has already bought a new bike and plans to complete that triathlon in San Diego sometime in 2026. His final triathlons, Alaska and Hawaii, are on the not-too-distant horizon.