Outpatient Surgery Magazine - Subscribers

Clear Cut - July 2015 - Outpatient Surgery Magazine

Outpatient Surgery Magazine, providing current information on Surgical Services, Surgical Facility Administration, Outpatient Surgery News and Trends, OR Excellence and more.

Issue link: http://outpatientsurgery.uberflip.com/i/539497

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 83 of 132

around $6,000 a year because we're able to steam-sterilize the cam- eras. We also negotiated a 7-year warranty on the camera heads, which will save us close to $100,000 (the warranty would have cost us $13,600 a year). Our vendor also cut our service contract in half. Our video system is amazingly compact and doesn't make a substan- tial footprint in the OR. I liken it to a "video tower in a box." It inte- grates 3 components — high-def cameras, an LED light source and an image management system — that used to be available as separate systems into one console that uses an Apple iPad tablet interface. Having one console and one interface simplifies use and makes it easy to accommodate individual surgeon preferences, which we can store on the cloud. We had long wanted to upgrade our video imaging equipment, but we have the Pennsylvania Department of Health to thank for really spurring us into action. The state DOH granted our surgical center an exception to perform laparoscopic vaginal hysterectomy and laparo- scopic supracervical hysterectomy. The imaging equipment we had was sufficient, but we knew it was time to invest in the latest technol- ogy. If we're going to do these advanced GYN procedures, we want to be sure we're really keeping patients safe by providing our physicians with the best possible tools. Last month we hosted our first laparo- scopic hysterectomy. The procedure went very smoothly, with excel- lent patient outcomes. I attribute the success in large part to our new video equipment. Complex laparoscopic surgery is difficult to master. This is made harder by the fact that you must interpret a 3-dimensional environ- ment on a 2-dimensional viewing screen. Dr. Frank says he was able 8 4 O U T P A T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E O N L I N E | J U LY 2 0 1 5 "If we're going to do these advanced GYN procedures, we want to be sure we're really keeping patients safe by providing our physicians the best possible tools." — Pamela Ertel, RN, BSN, CNOR, RNFA, CASC, FABC

Articles in this issue

Archives of this issue

view archives of Outpatient Surgery Magazine - Subscribers - Clear Cut - July 2015 - Outpatient Surgery Magazine