also in urology cases, to get the big picture on the bladder or kidney,
cardiovascular assessments and repairs, and occasionally general and
abdominal surgeries. Intraoperative image guidance can benefit both
physicians and patients. For surgeons, it helps to locate and target
anatomical structures, minimize incisions, view the progress of tech-
niques and implant placement, and confirm the completion of the
intended tasks. For patients, procedures conducted through smaller
incisions tend to be shorter, with a reduced risk of infection or com-
plications, less post-op pain and accelerated recovery.
Time to upgrade
The usable life span of a C-arm is about 10 to 15 years, after which
you might start hearing physicians' complaints about the imaging
equipment's failing sight. That's what led us to consider upgrading our
well-used C-arm in 2013. They would attempt to use it during a case,
only to complain that the images it captured were too dark or they
faded out over time, and that they weren't seeing what they wanted to
see.
These degraded images began to create throughput problems for us.
Because our hospital only owned one C-arm, we already had to sched-
ule cases that required the equipment — and there were more and
more of them — back to back instead of simultaneously, which was
hardly an efficient use of our ORs. Now, surgeons who were unlucky
enough to schedule their cases on days when the C-arm wasn't up to
par, which slowed down cases, saw the resulting bottlenecks delay
their cases. While some cases could be sent to the radiology proce-
dure room for imaging, open bone cases needed an OR, and we
weren't inclined to inconvenience patients by transferring them to
another facility. Time is always money, and we were burning it while
waiting for C-arms in our rooms.
7 1
N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 5 | O U T P A T I E N TS U R G E R Y. N E T
