Your IMPACT
After years of anticipation and an outpouring of generosity from many donors, our community celebrated the opening of the Cardiac Hybrid OR (Operating Room) this past March.
This new operating suite, located at University Hospital, is the first of its kind in Canada and serves as a launching pad for medical discovery while expanding the types of services offered to patients across southwestern Ontario.
The Cardiac Hybrid OR integrates interventional cardiology and cardiac/vascular surgical procedures to provide the most minimally invasive care for patients. It combines life-saving surgical facilities with the resources of a catheterization lab or “cath lab”. The cath lab is where non-surgical procedures, such as angioplasties to open clogged arteries, are performed by interventional cardiologists using a continuous x-ray technique called fluoroscopy.
Often the Hybrid OR will be used while surgeons perform dual functions at the same time. For example, a high-risk patient could receive a mitral heart valve repair and transcatheter aortic valve replacement implantation (TAVI) under the same anaesthetic. This means patients just have one procedure, which reduces their exposure to infection while shortening their recovery time.
In more challenging circumstances, the Cardiac Hybrid OR will act as a specialized room for emergency surgery. Imagine a heart patient undergoing a routine procedure in a small lab to treat their chest pain. Due to unexpected complications, the patient needs to be rushed to an OR where emergency open-heart surgery is performed, but potential delays in transferring the patient could mean the difference between life and death. That’s why a Cardiac Hybrid OR that combines these two spaces in one unit is essential.
“This OR provides us with an exciting opportunity to push the frontiers of medicine. Our entire team is grateful to have donors as partners in delivering world-class care to cardiac patients,” says Dr. Michael Chu, Chair/Chief, Cardiac Surgery, LHSC.
Thanks to the incredible vision and dedication of you, our donors, the longtime dream of a Cardiac Hybrid Operating Room is now a reality!
“Donors are really what make this successful. Without donor dollars, we would not be able to have this technology in London. It allows us to offer our patients a much broader array of procedures and we are able to provide less invasive operations, faster recovery times and even better care.” –Dr. Michael Chu