Beth Israel builds all-in-one cardiac operating room
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center recently laid out nearly $3 million to construct and outfit a ''hybrid" operating room for patients with heart problems. Doctors there say it is the only one of its kind in the country.
The new OR is equipped for cardiac catheterization, coronary artery bypass surgery, and other types of heart operations and the implantation of devices such as pacemakers. Previously, doctors said, patients who needed both open-heart surgery and catheterization to place a stent, for example, often scheduled the procedures on different days.
The new OR also is geared toward patients who need a stent but are at risk of cardiac arrest during the procedure and need a heart-lung bypass machine nearby -- standard in cardiac surgery ORs but not in catheterization labs.
Many Massachusetts hospitals are making major investments in new ORs. In its new cancer center, for example, Boston Medical Center is building six so-called ''operating rooms of the future," where all the equipment drops down from the ceiling, rather than being attached to the floor, and is voice-activated.
Numbers of lives saved in safety drive questioned
Last year, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in Cambridge promised it would save 100,000 lives in 18 months by persuading hospitals to adopt six safety measures. Last month, Modern Healthcare magazine published an article saying the institute ''is likely to fall far short of its goal."
The article prompted several critical letters, including one from the institute denying that the project would save only 61,000 lives by the June 14 deadline. More than 3,100 US hospitals have signed on to the project, which was funded in part by a $3 million donation from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts and included a prestigious list of supporters. The institute compares hospitals' mortality rates before the campaign to their rates after they've implemented the safety improvements to calculate lives saved.
''If it doesn't hit 100,000 it's going to be pretty darn close," said spokesman Jonathan Small.
In brief
Modern Healthcare last week published readers' picks for the 50 most powerful physicians in the United States, and Boston was well represented. No. 2: Dr. Donald Berwick, executive director of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement; No. 9: Dr. James Mongan, chief executive of Partners HealthCare System; No. 17: Dr. Gary Gottlieb, president of Brigham and Women's Hospital; No. 24: Dr. John Halamka, chief information officer at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center; No. 36: Dr. David Blumenthal, health policy professor at Harvard Medical School; and No. 44: Dr. Jeffrey Drazen, editor of The New England Journal of Medicine. . . .
The Boston-based Prescription Access Litigation Project, a nonprofit organization that sues drug companies to push for lower prices, last week announced its 2006 ''Bitter Pill Awards" to drug companies it believes are guilty of overzealous marketing. The winners: Sepracor and Sanofi-aventis for their marketing of the insomnia drugs Lunesta and Ambien, respectively;
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