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More flexibility for the future
The German hospital “Kliniken Essen-Mitte” is one of the first users of TRUMPF’s TruPort ceiling-mounted supply units. They are part of the flexible operating rooms that were expanded at the beginning of 2011.
Change is ubiquitous in clinics nowadays. New methods and technologies require rethinking as far as operating rooms are concerned, and the current demographic trend also has an impact. The hospital ”Kliniken Essen-Mitte”, for instance, identified a change in needs among its patients. For years now the clinic’s gynecology department has been recording declining numbers of births as a result of demographic development while the need for oncological treatment, especially for women, continues to rise. “That’s why we decided to set up a separate department for gynecological oncology in mid-2010 and to expand our operating rooms accordingly,” explains the head of Medical Technology, Andreas Weitzel.
Combined competence
Two hospitals form Kliniken Essen-Mitte: the “Evangelische Huyssens-Stiftung” hospital and the “Knappschafts-Krankenhaus”. The latter previously housed all gynecological sections. However, the Evangelische Huyssens-Stiftung hospital, located three kilometers away, already had a general oncology department in addition to the related fields of surgery and urology. For this reason the clinic management decided to open the new gynecological oncology department there. “However, the nine operating rooms at Huyssens-Stiftung were already operating at their limit,” adds Weitzel. “Thus, we had to urgently expand our room capacity to be able to cover the needs of all departments.”
Rebuilding at full speed
The existing space that was no longer used at Huyssens-Stiftung had to be completely renovated for the new department. The schedule was extremely tight: to minimize disruption of clinic operations, the rebuilding work was to be completed in around six months by the end of 2010. The new operating room equipment includes TRUMPF’s latest TruPort ceiling-mounted supply unit.
Flexible with TruPort
The TruPort ceiling-mounted supply unit hardly sticks out between high-definition monitors and DaVinci operation robots, but without it little would happen in the modern operating rooms at Kliniken Essen-Mitte. Nearly every important module for ongoing operating room activities, such as gas-supplying and electric connections and mechanical fasteners, is concentrated here at one place. The ceiling-mounting support unit is designed for maximum flexibility. Each module in the TruPort support head can be replaced by trained staff in just a few steps. Technology like this, designed for future changes, is extremely important. In Essen-Mitte, too, the opening of the new department is not the end of change there by a long shot. “Our clinic has its own dynamics,” states Weitzel. “The operating rooms are not permanently designed for the next 20 years – after all, technology continues to develop rapidly.”
Clear vision
This can be seen, for example, in operating room transmission technology, where a lot has happened in recent years. Kliniken Essen-Mite has an in-house transmission room that transmits video images of operations to medical lectures or conferences. For this purpose high-definition video cameras were integrated into the new TRUMPF iLED surgical lights also purchased by the clinic. The cables used for video transmission enable loss-free transport of the signal for a mere ten meters, however. Therefore, the video signal is converted in the TruPort support head by means of a transformer and transmitted via a supplementary glass fiber cable. “If the transmission standard should change now, we can easily replace the necessary equipment thanks to TruPort – with other systems this would not be possible without complications,” explains Weitzel with satisfaction. “Being an engineer, I’m very glad about upgrading and retrofitting options like these.”
