Welcome to The Hybrid OR, a resource to help operating room directors and managers assess the efficiencies and patient safety benefits of hybrid ORs. Featuring articles and information on planning, strategy and surgical benefits of the Hybrid OR, this informational website is brought to you by OR Manager and NuBOOM, an all-in-one equipment management, visualization, and ergonomic boom appliance.

Hybrid ORs can provide health systems with new surgical capabilities, opportunities to enhance patient safety, the ability to save time and enable long-term cost savings with improved efficiencies. Please expore the articles and information below so you can gain important insights as you plan and invest in your surgical suites.

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Endovascular hybrid ORs in community hospitals: Driving success

Endovascular hybrid operating rooms are no longer limited to university medical centers, as community hospitals expand their cardiovascular services. According to Dorothy Urschel, MS, MBA, RNFA, ACNP-C, NEA-BC, 3 main trends are stimulating the growth of hybrid ORs: “Cardiac surgery is becoming less invasive, interventional cardiology is becoming more invasive, and vascular surgery continues to be minimally invasive and use catheter techniques combined with radiology techniques.” Urschel is cardiac and vascular service line director at St Peter’s Health Partners, a system of 4 community hospitals in Albany, New York.

ECRI Institute, which assists hospitals with strategic planning and technology assessment, has seen about a 10% annual growth in requests related to hybrid ORs among its 3,500 hospital members. The trend of more hybrid ORs—including those in community hospitals—is likely to continue.

But a successful hybrid program requires careful analysis and planning by a multidisciplinary team. “Start with the patient, and work your way back to determine what you need,” says Thomas Skorup, MBA, FACHE, vice president of applied solutions for ECRI Institute. “Technology supports practice, it doesn’t drive it.”

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Lessons learned from hybrid OR installations

The cost investment, space and equipment needs, and learning curve involved in adding a hybrid OR can seem daunting, but the increased flexibility and efficiency that can be achieved suggest the effort is worthwhile. Staff at 3 East Coast hospitals who have been through the process reflect on their experiences and describe what a hybrid OR project entails.

Building the first hybrid OR was a “leap of faith,” says James E. McGowan, DHA, MBA, RRT, vice president of procedural care services at the University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC) in Baltimore, which has 4 hybrid ORs. Procedures performed in these ORs range from standard coronary artery bypass grafting and valve cases to endovascular and minimally invasive valve procedures.

Initial interest in investing in a hybrid OR was sparked by a surgeon who often worked in robotic surgery and who had formed a partnership with a faculty interventionalist at that time, says McGowan. UMMC recognized the future potential of such an OR and played the odds.

“If I were to try to dial back time … I wouldn’t have even had on my radar the fact that we would be floating valves into people’s hearts in a room that has to have a team of OR nurses and a team of nurses from the cath lab plus radiologic technologists,” says McGowan. Two of the 4 hybrid ORs at UMMC are now consistently in use for 80% of prime time hours, and the majority of this utilization is for hybrid cases, he notes.

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