St. Mary's Surgery Suite Saves Time
Pictured left to right are Kevin Heislen, Beth Scherr, Helen Bower and Eric Bailey. |
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- A new operating room at St. Mary’s Health Center, its eighth, means faster turnaround times between surgeries for patients.
"The biggest advantage of this new operating room at St. Mary's is that it is a completely integrated OR suite," said John Brothers, administrative director of St. Mary's surgery department. "This means that all the features in the room -- lights, screens, cameras, images and even music -- can be controlled with the touch of a fingertip by the operating room nurse at the documentation station. It's amazing.”
Multiple flat-screen monitors provide high-quality images and are positioned so that physicians and staff can easily view them. A nurse at a computer station can change everything from the lighting and surgical camera angles to the tunes played on the surgeons’ I-Pods. Nurses can retrieve and display medical images from the picture archiving system. LED lighting provides better light for surgeons and saves money because the bulbs only have to be replaced every 13 years. Caregivers also save time since technology suspended from the ceiling means it won’t have to be moved out of the way after every procedure.
Surgeries in the operating room began in March. Last year, more than 6,400 surgeries were performed at St. Mary’s, which has a commitment to quality that placed it in the top 1 percent of hospitals nationwide. For more information about surgical services at St. Mary's, contact John Brothers, surgical services director, (573) 761-7000, ext. 2197, or john_brothers@ssmhc.com.
Learn more about St. Mary's commitment to quality in a case study by The Commonwealth Fund.
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