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Montefiore Medical Center Opens $30-Million Wing For Laparoscopic Surgery And Cardiac Intensive Care

BRONX, NY (May 18, 2001) - Montefiore Medical Center today opened a new $30-million wing that includes six high-tech operating rooms and 18 state-of-the-art cardiac intensive care patient rooms. The new center is located at the Jack D. Weiler Hospital of Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Morris Park section of the Bronx.

The six operating rooms provide a glimpse into the future of minimal access (endoscopic) and cardiac surgery. Video cameras, flat screen monitors and surgical instruments are suspended from the ceiling on large booms, making it efficient and ergonomically suitable for the surgeons performing complex minimally invasive surgery. Three of the new rooms are equipped for minimally invasive open heart surgery; two of these rooms have telecommunications equipment for teleconferencing surgeries around the world in real time.

"The opening of this new center marks a proud turning point in the care of heart patients for Montefiore Medical Center and its Weiler Hospital Division and ushers in a new era of advanced laparoscopic surgery," said Spencer Foreman, MD, president of Montefiore. "Over the past 15 years we have invested over $175 million in capital improvements on our East Campus to enhance the medical care of patients who come from all over the metropolitan area to be served by our facilities here."

Montefiore’s East Campus includes the Weiler Hospital on Eastchester Road, just south of Morris Park Avenue, and Montefiore Medical Park facilities at Eastchester Road and Blondell Avenue. The new, 26,500 square-foot wing is located in a two-story building addition that adjoins the Eastchester Road entrance to the Weiler Hospital. The first story contains the operating rooms and the second story houses the cardiac intensive care unit.

Advanced Endoscopic Surgery Suite With Voice-Activated Robotic Arm
“The ‘boom’ rooms in this new wing are tailor-made to improve patient safety, enhance surgical quality and reduce time in the operating room for today’s more complex minimally invasive procedures,” said T.S. Ravikumar, MD, chairman of the Department of Surgery. “The cameras and video screens required for minimally invasive surgery are hung from the ceiling and can, with ease, be rotated in and out of the surgical field and kept out of the way of the surgical team.”

Until very recently, laparoscopic surgery has been limited to simpler operations, such as gall bladder removals, and the surgical equipment and monitors were wheeled in on a cart. At Montefiore, however, more advanced procedures for orthopedics, gynecology, urology, general surgery and heart/lung surgery have become more common. In these more complex operations, surgeons move around the patient to approach the surgical site from different angles. The flexibility of boom technology allows them, as they change position, to simultaneously rotate the flat-panel video screens (their only field of vision of the surgical site), robot-controlled endoscopic camera (which is voice activated) and other technology.

Cardiac Intensive Care Center – Technical Sophistication
The 15,000 square-foot cardiac intensive care floor, with 18 patient rooms, has state-of-the art monitoring equipment. Both critically ill heart patients and post-op cardiothoracic surgery patients will be cared for in the units. A computerized, network-based monitoring system with all types of patient information is at each bed side. A private elevator for patients takes them from the operating room to the intensive care unit. Also included in this new unit is a luxurious family area, special children’s section, mini-kitchen, quiet room and extensive resources for meetings, staff activities and research.

“This is far and away the most esthetically pleasing and technically sophisticated cardiac care center in existence today,” said Jeffrey Gold, MD, chairman of the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Montefiore. “It will instantaneously become a premier resource for all the diverse patients and families we serve at the Montefiore-Einstein Heart Center.”

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Roman Perez-Soler, MD

Chairman, Medical Oncology

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