Surgery department expects to be busy

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John M. Steiner / The Sun Linda Todd, surgical services manager, Jamestown Regional Medical Center, points out the new technology available to medical staff in a surgery room.

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The new surgery center in the Jamestown Regional Medical Center is looking to be one of the hospital’s busiest departments — and the medical staff says it’s ready.

Currently around 130 procedures are done each month at Jamestown Hospital. Now with three surgery rooms instead of two, people can expect less of a wait and a more convenient experience, said Linda Todd, surgical services manager, JRMC.

The pre and post operation area will also house endoscopy services like colonoscopies and gastropathies — or using instruments to look inside organs to find and fix problems.

Surgeons currently do those procedures. With the two services housed together procedures will be faster and more efficient, said James Metzger, certified registered nurse anesthetist and anesthesia manager.

“Now they’ll be at the same place and can work together with everything,” Metzger said.

Other surgical procedures include cataract treatment, laparoscopic procedures, cesarean sections, carpal-tunnel procedures, dilation and curettage, breast biopsies, hernia treatment and hysterectomies.

After someone comes in the person will enter one of 12 pre operation rooms and get prepared for surgery.

Family members waiting outside will have a silent paging system to let them know if they are needed or when the procedure is completed.

Once prepped, the patient will enter one of three operating rooms for the procedure.

Behind those doors is new, state-of-the-art equipment that rivals that in a teaching hospital.

“Here all three rooms will be functional for whatever we need to do,” Metzger said.

A computerized system allows multiple pieces of data to be shown to the surgeons on a monitor as they work. This is instead of manually flipping back and forth between the operating table and a hard copy on paper.

New ambient green lights provide a diffused light and work like night vision in the room and will eliminate using flashlights during certain procedures.

When the rest of the overhead ceiling and surgical lights are turned off for laparoscopic cases, ambient lights are turned on. This allows the surgeon to see the monitor without glare, yet allows the scrub nurse to see her/his instrumentation better and the other staff to move around in the room if needed and not be in near darkness, Todd said.

The old hospital would have the lights turned off in the room and anesthesia and the circulating nurse would use a task light at his/her stations, she said.

There’s also a radiology unit on two moveable arms that make the equipment easier to move instead of having to work around it.

“It’s safer and it makes everyone’s job easier,” Metzger said of the new surgery rooms and equipment.

Metzger’s eyes lit up when he saw the new anesthesia machine he’d be working with and the advanced technology available at his fingertips.

It will have easier connections for procedures like cesarean sections. A boom, an overhead beam mounted in the ceiling, centralizes the location of equipment for support services and allows and delivers 360 degrees of accessibility.

Medical gases, a vacuum, electrical and data port services are included with the new anesthesia booms. The old booms offered the same services without the data port and the 360 degrees accessibility.

“It’s time for another one and now’s the perfect time,” Metzger said of the piece of equipment.

Even the new medication cart will be computerized and take stock of medications that were used and that need to be restocked.

Each room has two scrubbing stations outside and windows for doctors to look into the surgery rooms if they want to.

Dirtied instruments will be taken out a back door of the rooms where they can be cleaned quickly and properly. At the old hospital there was a considerable distance to travel before tools were cleaned.

“We will have better use of our space compared to what we have now,” Todd said.

Once out of surgery patients will be moved to a recovery center in a monitored area until they are cleared to leave, or relocated somewhere else in the building.

Staff said they are ready for whatever has to be done in the new surgery section of the hospital.

“We’ll be busy — busy is good,” Todd said. “We’re all excited.”

Sun reporter Ben Rodgers can be reached at 701-952-8455 or by e-mail at brodgers@jamestownsun.com

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