NASHVILLE — Gresham, Smith and Partners announces the recent completion of several hybrid operating rooms at hospitals and medical facilities across the country. GS&P recently provided design services for three hybrid operating rooms at Nashville’s Saint Thomas Hospital, two of which will be used exclusively for cardiac and vascular procedures and one for neurosurgical procedures. The projects bring the total of completed GS&P-designed hybrid operating rooms nationwide to 11, which is 10 percent of the approximate 100 hybrid operating rooms in the United States, according to the ECRI Institute. Seven others are under design by GS&P for facilities across the United States.
Hybrid ORs provide surgeons and physicians with the most-advanced surgical innovations and imaging equipment for a variety of procedures in one centralized location. The rooms are planned to increase patient safety, decrease procedure times, and eliminate patient transfers to imaging rooms before and after surgery, which may result in improved cost efficiency and fewer medical errors. Hybrid ORs also facilitate quality outcomes because surgeons can verify their procedures live during an operation, and various hybrid systems can communicate with other systems, such oncology treatment platforms.
“Studies have predicted that approximately 75 percent of cardiovascular surgeons will be working in a hybrid operating suite in the next three to five years. We are proud to be working with hospitals across the country to integrate these rooms into their existing facilities,” commented Orlando Lopez-Isa, executive vice president at Gresham, Smith and Partners. “The benefits to patients and physicians are tremendous – patients are able to stay in one room for the duration of even the most complicated surgeries. Infection rates and recovery speed may be reduced since patients don’t have to be unhooked from equipment and transferred from one surgery room to another. We have a working knowledge of all hybrid systems provided by major vendors, and though each hybrid OR we’ve designed is unique, they all offer the same advantages and provide patients the highest-quality surgery and medical care.”
Saint Thomas Hospital’s first GS&P-designed 924-square-foot hybrid OR came online in February and was recently used for the new transcatheter aortic valve replacement cardiac procedure with the Edwards Lifesciences valve. The TAVR procedure allows for patients who are not candidates for traditional open heart surgery to receive the life-saving heart valve replacement. Because of the precision required of the valve placement, the procedure can only be performed in a hybrid OR setting.
The second 1,150-square-foot room, still under construction, is scheduled to open this summer. In addition to these two hybrid ORs, Saint Thomas Hospital’s recently unveiled Unity System features a hybrid neurosurgical operating room. It includes a unique arrangement of technologies, including Brainlab Brainsuite® and VISIUS Surgical Theatre™ by IMRIS, with intraoperative MRI so that, in effect, all clinicians can be brought into the OR in real time to determine the optimal treatment for each patient. A team of neurosurgeons, medical oncologists, physicians and caregivers can collaborate with each other and utilize hybrid OR technology to provide faster, more timely cancer treatment with better outcomes.
GS&P also provided design services for a 1,482-square-foot hybrid cardiac surgical suite at Morton Plant Hospital’s Morgan Heart Hospital in Clearwater, Fla., and the renovation of Tampa General Hospital’s 34,500-square-foot cardiovascular suite, which is currently under construction and includes a new high-tech cardiovascular transplant hybrid operating room.
Additionally, the firm has provided design services for eight other completed hybrid operating rooms at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center’s Brenner Children’s Hospital in Winston-Salem, N.C., United Hospital Center Replacement Hospital in Clarksburg, W.V., Denver Health and Hospital Authority’s Community Health Center in Denver, Col., Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital at Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood, Fla., Boca Raton Community Hospital in Boca Raton, Fla., Henrico Doctor’s Hospital in Richmond, Va., Southeast Alabama Medical Center in Dothan, Ala., and Osceola Regional Medical Center in Kissimmee, Fla. GS&P is currently providing design services for hybrid operating rooms at seven other hospitals and medical centers across the country, scheduled for completion in 2013 and 2014.
