Is a hybrid operating room an effective marketing tool? For one health system, it garnered coverage on local TV news.
KSAT-TV in San Antonio last week reported that Baptist Health System’s hybrid OR “saved an 82-year-old patient’s life” after doctors found an aneurysm.
The patient, facing major surgery for an abdominal aortic aneurysm, said he was reluctant to undergo a traditional open procedure. But he was more receptive to surgery after Baptist vascular surgeon Michael Peck, MD, told him about the hybrid OR, which the TV station described as capable of combining “interventional techniques with traditional surgery.”
KSAT reported that the hybrid OR “allows doctors to perform both open surgery and minimally invasive, endovascular procedures in the same space.”
“It lets us do a combination of open surgery and endovascular minimally invasive surgery at the same time using X-ray and surgical teams together,” Dr. Peck told the TV station, adding that the technology in the hybrid OR saves time when patients are in critical condition. “If we can save them a second anesthetic or if we could do a procedure in a hybrid way that maybe takes less time, it gives the patient safety, security and it solves their medical problem.”
For previously reluctant patient Daniel Amendola, the hybrid OR allowed his surgical team to avoid open chest and abdominal surgery by using small incisions in his arm and groin. “It saved him a lot of risk and a lot of complication, and in about four or five hours, he got everything fixed,” Dr. Peck told KSAT. (Watch KSAT’s video report, which includes images of the hybrid OR, here.)
Baptist Health owner Tenet Health announced the opening of the 1,200-square-foot hybrid OR at San Antonio’s North Central Baptist Hospital in November of last year. The hospital invested nearly $13 million to build it, as well as to create space for future expansion.
“Our new hybrid OR allows our surgeons to perform imaging, diagnosis and surgery all in one room – without having to move our patients from the unit,” said Bill Waechter, Market CEO for Baptist Health System, when the hybrid OR opened. “Now, we have advanced technology to achieve seamless one-room operations. This arrangement enhances safety, saves critical time and minimizes risk, especially for trauma patients or those needing emergency heart procedures.”
Mr. Waechter added, “Patients will benefit long-term because the hybrid OR combines intervention and surgery, reducing preparation time and the need for multiple patient appointments.”
Among the procedures that can be performed in the hybrid OR, Tenet said, are transcatheter aortic valve replacement, endovascular aneurysm repair, left atrial appendage closure, and hybrid electrophysiology.
