Surgical Suites Go High-Tech: Facility Will Offer the Latest in Minimally Invasive Surgery, General Hospital Says.
By Steve Mocarsky, Wilkes-Barre, Pa., Times Leader
Jan. 15–WILKES-BARRE — Wyoming Valley Health Care System officials on Sunday gave the public a look at two new multimillion-dollar surgical suites opened at Wilkes-Barre General Hospital that boast some of the most high-tech surgical equipment in the region.
“These technologically advanced surgical suites complement our overall commitment to offer the absolute best surgical options to our patients and the community,” Dr. William Host, president and chief executive officer of the health care system, said during a 1 p.m. open house in one of the suites.
The suites, both of which are 800 square feet, cost nearly $6 million to build and equip, and they offer the latest in minimally invasive surgical technology, said Judy Maxwell, the hospital’s director of surgical services.
Benefits of minimally invasive procedures include smaller incisions, shorter recovery time, less risk of infection and shorter hospital stays.
All of the equipment — including trays for surgical instruments, oxygen, anesthesia and intravenous lines, LCD monitors and remote-controlled video cameras — is contained in two carts next to the operating table or extended on booms from the ceiling, which makes for a safer and more sterile operating room by reducing floor clutter, Maxwell said.
One of the cameras is installed in one of three sets of overhead surgical lighting arrays on boom arms that swing over the operating table. The lights can be positioned manually by members of the operating team, and the cameras can be positioned and focused from a computer console set up in a corner of each suite.
Surgeons can choose to display close-ups of traditional operations, images from miniature laparoscopic cameras inserted inside the body during minimally invasive surgeries, X-rays and other diagnostic images, and patients’ physiological information such as heart rate and blood pressure on four 19-inch LCD monitors extended from the boom arms, or on a 40-inch monitor mounted on a wall. A microphone also extends from the ceiling over the operating table.
The cameras and microphone are linked to a digital video recording and broadcast system that can record and broadcast live audio/video feeds from surgeries over the Internet to teaching or observation facilities within the hospital or to facilities with compatible equipment anywhere in the world, Maxwell said.
Dr. Ira Grossman, chief of urology, said he has performed surgeries at every hospital in the Wyoming Valley and at hospitals in Scranton and Bloomsburg. “We have the best operating facilities and the best staff here of any of those hospitals,” he said.
Grossman said the health care system will continue to lead the region in advanced surgical technology, as a new $1.5 million robotic surgery system is slated for installation within the next few months. And, he says, acquiring the latest technology “is never cheap,” comparing costs of plasma-screen televisions eight years ago to costs now to illustrate his point.
“The hospital may lose money on this type of technology, but the hospital doesn’t seem to care because the bottom line is better patient care with the newest technology available,” Grossman said.
Maxwell said the new suites bring the hospital’s operating room complement to 15. She said the largest of the old rooms are 450 to 500 square feet, and health care system officials plan to either renovate them or add more new operating rooms to the building.
The installation of the surgical suites is part of the health care system’s 5-year strategic plan to establish centers for excellence in health care in the Wyoming Valley.
ON THE NET
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www.wvhc.org/advancedsurgery [http://www.wvhc.org/advancedsurgery] to read more about Wilkes-Barre General Hospital’s Center for Advanced Surgery and minimally invasive procedures.
Go to www.timesleader.com [http://www.timesleader.com] for more photos from the open house.
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Copyright (c) 2007, Wilkes-Barre, Pa., Times Leader
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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