"Living Laboratories" Across the Continuum of Care:
Innovative Spaces and Virtual Places

5.26.2009 Operating Room of the Future   SPEAKER: Colleen Kigin, DPT, FAPTA: CIMIT MODERATOR: Ron Newbower, PhD: CIMIT

Forum Summary

Some people believe that it is impossible for innovation to be disruptive within a functioning setting, but the Operating Room of the Future (ORF) being developed at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) proves that disruptive innovations can be introduced into a functioning healthcare delivery system.  The goal of the project is to improve efficiency in the operating room by developing and using technology to improve the environment for doctors, nurses, and patients.

Built because of collaboration between MGH and the Center for the Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology (CIMIT), the Operating Room of the Future has been designed to make surgery more comfortable for patients and easier for surgeons.  Instead of being anesthetized in the operating room, the patient in the ORF is anesthetized outside the operating room and wheeled into position on a movable table.  Radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags are used to keep track of patients, hospital personnel, and equipment.  Tasks in the ORF are performed in parallel, as opposed to in sequence, in order to improve efficiency.  Data displays are integrated into one system so that surgeons and anesthesiologists can communicate more effectively with each other, and a control room is located near the operating room so that surgeons can communicate electronically with patients and colleagues between operations. 

Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) is pursuing a similar project, and the design of the Operating Room of the Future is being emulated in hospitals across the country.  Building the ORF at MGH required strong leadership, a carefully crafted strategic vision, collaboration with engineers in industry, and an institutional commitment to the project. 
Keywords: Brigham and Women’s Hospital, BWH, Advanced Multimodality Image-Guided Operating room, AMIGO, molecular imaging, radiology, magnetic resonance imaging, MRI, imaging, surgery, operating room

Post a Comment