The "Golden Supporting Actor" in The Operating Room
2022-08-19
"Paleolithic" and "craniotomy" do not go together, with the former being the Stone Age, and the latter involving highly specialized tools and proficient skills of surgeons. However, craniotomy surgery procedures do indeed reach as far back as the Paleolithic period. A piece of good evidence is a healed skull from the Paleolithic period found in Shandong Province of China in 2001, which demonstrated it experienced a "craniotomy". Hundreds of years later, the ancient Greeks equipped surgery with scalpels, needles, tweezers, and some other instruments that gradually became widely utilized.
With modern medicine rapidly developing and permeating into our daily lives, it is understood that surgeons play the "leading role" on which our lives depend in the operating room. But if we take a closer look at the "platform" on which surgeons practice surgery, we will be surprised to notice that there is a "supporting actor" right there at the center of the operation, although it catches little attention.
The name of this actor is "operating table". It has always been with patients and surgeons as a witness and a vessel of history in the fight against diseases. In the past 200 years, the operating table has evolved from a long wooden bench to a well-designed versatile instrument. So, what then can a 21st-century operating table do?
Leveling up the preoperative workflow
In the past, operating tables could only be placed horizontally, but now, the tables are flexible in their adaptation to various operations. For example, lower abdominal surgeries like colorectal, gynecological, genitourinary procedures, and laparoscopic surgeries, require a Trendelenburg position to achieve a more precise surgical site, and this is decided by the maximum slope and tilt angle of the table. The Mindray HyBase V8 operating table debuted last year extended the maximum slope and tilt angle to 36° and 26°, respectively. This upgrade has greatly enhanced surgeons' confidence, as more sufficient exposure to the lesions has been provided to them.
In ensuring patient safety, surgeons or nurses do not want any unexpected situations to arise in the operating room. However, any position change of the operating table could lead to some risks or inconveniences, not to mention the operating tables are always covered by layers of sterile sheets, making it difficult for nurses to observe table-top movement with the naked eye during preoperative routines. Sometimes, nurses even have to squat to check the table’s position and while doing so, the objects under the table could be easily neglected and cause collisions.
To prevent such types of accidents, Mindray introduced the patented Intelligent Collision Protection System (ICPS™) automobile braking technology to the HyBase V8, so that the table will auto-stop itself when it collides with other objects and the floor. Moreover, Mindray upgraded the remote control with the incorporation of a color-coded indication system. With table-top movement visualization and alarm settings, effectively reducing the risks of collision.
These upgraded functions go into the details and all of them are made with a patient-oriented philosophy. They help reduce preoperative workload for nurses and make surgical procedures safer so that patients can get more focused care.
Widening the range of intraoperative support
The operating room is an integrated workplace. There are many other medical devices that collaborate with each other to complete every single major procedure in the operating room. For example, the C-arm is an indispensable partner of the operating table that helps surgeons locate the lesions and for implantation placement. The C-arm is quite large in size and in most cases, the function of the C-arm can only be brought into full play with the "compromise" of the operating table. In order to better collaborate with the C-arm, Mindray decreased the base of the HyBase V8 to 120mm and increased the bidirectional and longitudinal shift to 160mm and 190mm, respectively, facilitating greater inlet-outlet imaging. The Mindray HyBase V8 family also uses a radio-translucent carbon fiber tabletop for clearer 360° visualization, empowering surgeons to make more accurate diagnoses.
Nowadays, with expansion in the diversity of patients and operation types, the modern operating table is required to be extra stable and durable. The Mindray HyBase V8 Family has a maximum bearing capacity of 460kg, which allows Gastrectomy to be carried out. In terms of regular operations, it also allows surgeons to take on complicated cases with greater confidence.
Strengthening postoperative infection control
The disinfection procedures after operations are vital to both patients and surgical teams, and the "platform" of the operations, the operating table, is certainly the key area.
To make the cleaning work less tedious and less challenging, Mindray HyBase V8 Family adopts an integrated bellow-free design as well as a flat base that encloses the wheels to improve the efficiency of postoperative infection control and maximally eliminating the risk of bacteria breeding.
In addition, the waterproof level of Mindray HyBase V8 Family has been upgraded to IPX 5, effectively preventing the damage from the rinsing liquid permeation, and extending the life expectancy of the device.
Better design, better service
Today, medical operations are becoming more and more complicated. Hence, the operating table is required to be sophisticatedly designed in every aspect to be more supportive.
For hospitals, the modular design of the tabletop can lower costs as they only need to purchase different attachments instead of new tables for additional surgical types.
For surgeons and nurses, a considerate design of handy handles, double-swivel castors, and even a better-looking appearance can make their work easier and somewhat lift up their spirits.
For patients, a mattress of multi-layer decompression padding can bring greater comfort to patients during the operation. The breathability of the pad effectively reduces the risk of decubitus caused by poor blood circulation when in the state of muscle relaxation, lessening the burdens for patients during postoperative rehabilitation.
As an innovative product created with the synergy of outstanding engineering design and clinic experiences, the Mindray HyBase V8 family has received the IF design award this year.
What does a 21st-century operating room need?
The Acibadem City Clinic has an answer to this question. This clinic is based in Bulgaria and is a modernized hospital specializing in cardiology. Heart surgery places a high demand on the functionality and performance of medical devices, so the Clinic requires its medical devices to be user-friendly, reliable, and stable. As such, Mindray has become their partner, providing devices to their high-end operating rooms.
Looking into the future: digital operating rooms
Apart from operating tables, there are also many other "supporting actors" who play their roles in the operating rooms. All of these "actors" work in a joint manner to make the operating room a sacred place for saving lives.
Today, digital connectivity in medical devices with technological innovations, as well as the vast amount of data availability, has led to a megatrend in the future of operating rooms. Patient data management, remote medical data transfer, and high-resolution imaging all require modern surgeries to be more digitalized and to feature higher efficiency, more safety, and greater ease to use. This is the right moment for digital operating rooms.
Based on its deep insight into clinical needs, Mindray introduced a series of digitalized solutions into the market, including the Mindray Surgi·Core Digital Integrated Operation System. This system adopts E-tran™ transmission technology. While ensuring high-quality and high-resolution images to meet clinical needs, it can quickly transfer images like endoscopic, exposure field, and monitoring images between different display terminals in the hospital so that caregivers can share real-time images with each other. The full-link 4K high-definition image quality of Surgi·Core can also show original clinical colors and realize fast blood vessel positioning, enhancing the accuracy and safety for minimally invasive surgery. For postoperative care, Surgi·Core’s patient-centered image data sharing platform can provide long-term resources for hospitals, academics, and management teams while ensuring data security.
The evolution of operating tables and operating rooms have given full expression to the nature of medicine and humankind’s history of fighting against diseases. As stated in the Hippocratic Oath, "In every house where I come, I will enter only for the good of my patients", the purpose of providing medical care is to safeguard the dignity and health of people for the better. When medical devices become smarter and more people-oriented, caregivers are more empowered to safeguard every patient in a better way. Moving forward into the future, Mindray will spare no effort to bring about more accessible healthcare to every corner of the world, and together with all caregivers, safeguard the health of humankind.
