The massive robotic C-shaped arm curved around the operating table, ready to offer surgeons a laser-precise image of minuscule body parts.
On either side, flatscreen monitors showed bones, organs, tiny blood vessels. Vital signs, such as blood pressure and heartbeat, are displayed in clear view from wherever in the room the surgical team is working.
These tools are part of the future of advanced surgery. For the staff at Community Hospital South, the chance to use cutting edge equipment such as this is exhilarating.
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“It’s some of the best technology that’s out there. It’s pretty overwhelming that a smaller hospital such as us has this ability,” said Julie Huddleston, nurse manager of the surgical department.
Community Hospital South’s newly renovated surgical center will allow surgeons to perform an expansive array of procedures, from general surgeries to spinal fusions to complex operations on veins and arteries. The expansion included two new operating rooms and six new recovery rooms, increasing the capabilities and capacity of the surgical center.
The creation of a “hybrid” room — a specialized operating room using high-tech imagery — allows surgeons to perform incredibly delicate procedures in a minimally invasive way.
“The surgeon has a real-time view of where to guide everything,” said Jim Timm, director of nursing for surgical services at Community Hospital South. “Everything is so ‘live,’ so visual for everyone to see.”
The expanded surgery center took nearly two years to plan, and construction took more than a year. The $13 million project added 6,700 square feet of space, adding two operating rooms, giving Community Hospital South a total of eight. Six more pre- and post-recovery rooms give the hospital a total of 32 rooms where patients can heal following a procedure.
The goal of the project was to meet the needs of patients on the southside, an area that is growing at a rapid rate, Timm said. Patients in Johnson County and around the southside will have more options for surgery closer to home, as opposed to driving across Indianapolis for an operation.
“It’s close proximity for the families. People don’t have to drive to the northside; they don’t have to drive far,” Timm said. “Major teaching hospital technology has made its way to the southside on a local level.”
The centerpiece of the hybrid room is the ARTIS pheno C-arm, which shifts to any angle to provide the imaging that needs to be done. Community South’s is nicknamed “Colossal,” a name bestowed on it by a student at Abraham Lincoln Elementary School in Perry Township.
The adjoining operating table is synced with the arm, to adjust angle and direction to best adapt to what the surgeon needs.
Imaging done with the C-arm can see directly through the table, ensuring that the views provided to the surgical team are clear and not obstructed, Huddleston said.
“You’re actually seeing the anatomy of the patients, as opposed to the rail or something else. You don’t want any interference with the image,” she said.
An example of how the marriage of imagery services and an operating room is beneficial is for patients who need vascular surgery, or an operation on the veins or arteries.
“Traditionally, these types of procedures had to be done with big open incisions. Now, with this technology, it provides the surgeon with real-time images so that instead of making a big incision, they can make a much more minimally invasive incision in the vessel in the groin and operate from there,” Timm said. “None of those things would be possible if we didn’t have this imagery.”
The new equipment makes it possible for patients to get multiple surgeries at a single site. Previously, some operations required people to travel to different hospitals and different departments to get all the surgeries they need, Timm said.
“It reduces the need for second surgeries if we can do it all at once,” he said. “What used to take two surgeries, we can do all in one. And being minimally invasive, you can get the patients home faster.”
Setting up the hybrid room took nearly every department in the hospital months of collaboration, from interventional radiology to the pharmacy to cardiovascular surgeons to the information technology department.
The first procedure was conducted in mid-November in the new space. Surgeons and everyone involved in the surgical department is looking forward to exploring the breadth of potential now at their fingertips, Timm said.
“Community South is very fortunate to have highly skilled people who have been with the network for a very long time, to make this work. You can have all of the technology and a great hybrid room,” he said. “But it means nothing if you don’t have exceptionally gifted people.”
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Community Hospital South
Expanded surgical center
What: A 6,700 square foot expansion to the existing surgery department at the hospital, adding two operating rooms, including a specialized "hybrid" room, and six recovery rooms.
Total number of operating rooms: 8
Total number of recovery rooms: 32
Cost of project: About $13 million
Length of project: About one year
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