Hospital Gets New Operating Rooms
January 07, 2004
View PDF or Read Article Below
The time it takes to do some surgical procedures at Rochester General Hospital could drop by up to 25 percent with the addition of two new operating rooms worth $2.2 million.
The operating rooms are larger at 600 square feet each, and the rooms have lights and equipment suspended from the ceiling.
But one of the biggest pluses is that X-ray images can be beamed directly from the radiology department into the operating room onto flat screens. The days of running to radiology to get the X-rays and then manually putting them up on a light box are over in these rooms.
"It can be tremendously important," said Rochester General's chief of surgery Dr. Ralph Doerr about the simultaneous video images. "We'll make a decision (during the operation) based on that information."
Surgeries in the two new rooms will begin Monday.
In February 2002, Strong Memorial Hospital added flat screens to its operating repertoire as part of an $8.5 million addition of new operating rooms.
Rochester General was able to add the technology thanks in part to a $600,000 grant from the Twigs of the Rochester General Hospital Association; the rest was paid for through the hospital's operating budget. Twigs, a nonprofit group, has worked for the last two years in small fundraising efforts to make the operating rooms a reality.
Diane Bosco, president of Twigs, said the operating room gift is one of the largest and most exciting donations the group has ever given.
The new operating rooms and flat screens will be beneficial for laparoscopic surgery, a procedure in which cameras allow the surgeon to work through tiny incisions in the body. The surgery typically allows for less pain and a quicker recovery because the incisions are much smaller. Orthopedic surgery, which involves the spine, bones, muscles and joints, will also be done in one of the new rooms.
Doctors hope the flat screen video imaging will speed up operations by between 10 and 25 percent. They also believe laparoscopic surgery will increase from around 30 procedures a day to twice that number. Rochester General typically does about 80 to 100 surgeries a day.
The hospital has 22 additional operating rooms, which are around 400 square feet each.
Moving equipment carts and electrical cords off the floor in the new rooms will help prevent doctors and nurses from bumping into each other - which also cuts down on possible contamination, said Rosemary Roth, Rochester General's director of surgical services.
"We'll have better patient safety," Roth said.
All the lights and equipment in the new rooms will be controlled by computer, so nurses will be able to spend more time with the patient before surgery, instead of maneuvering and turning on the machines, according to Roth.