Medical Advancements: Saving Lives Every Day

The evolution of medical technology at Yuma Regional Medical Center in the past 50 years has made procedures faster and more efficient for patients while increasing the number of areas in which staff specialize, according to hospital staff.

Tim Brooks, who has worked for 20 years managing operating room materials, says that with new methods of sterilization and surgery available to surgeons today, patients are dealt with faster and more efficiently.

"There's more available to you now than way back then," says Brooks.

Among the top innovations Tim Mitchell has seen introduced to YRMC are open heart and microscopic surgeries.

Mitchell, who has been with YRMC for 20 years and is now the director of the outpatient surgery department, says that in microscopic surgery, surgeons direct their instruments through small ports of entry in the patients' bodies and rely on a camera to project images of the surgical site to a video screen.

He says there are clear advantages to this type of surgery for a patient. In a typical gall bladder surgery, he says, a patient might have to endure a five- to six-inch incision and spend three to five days in recovery.

If the patient is a candidate for microscopic surgery, however, the procedure will take as little as two hours, says Mitchell. He also says that the patient will have a shorter stay and leave with only four or five bandages.

Microscopic surgery to Mitchell "means Band-aids instead of major incisions," and he says that the trend throughout his career has been toward shortening and even eliminating patients stays.

Steve Matowik, biomedical engineering supervisor and YRMC employee of 22 years, says the centralization of information gathering and patient monitoring also leads to better care and diagnosis.

With the centralization of databases, Matowik says, nurses can monitor patients using computer data stations, allowing them to complete administrative tasks and charting without losing sight of their patients.

These databases can also track heartbeats and other health indicators for signs of disease in a patient with greater efficiency and accuracy than ever before, says Matowik.

Similarly, Bruce Atwell, boilerroom supervisor, says he is now able to control the thermostats of each individual room in the hospital from a centralized location, ensuring patients' and visitors' comfort during their stay.

Improvements and innovations have also been used in the diagnostic imaging department at YRMC.

Marty Schotten, a clinical resource coordinator, says that in December 2000, YRMC was among one-third of U.S. hospitals that switched to digital X-ray technology.

This past summer the diagnostic imaging department introduced a new fluoroscopy machine that, according to Lena Haygood, an imaging-based educator, will decrease patient doses of harmful X-rays by 80 to 90 percent for adults and 97 percent for pediatric patients.

Marco Salmoran, a day-shift lead technologist, says that the new grid pulse fluoroscopy machine is one of "10 types of machines" currently in use in the United States.

Innovation in medical technology isn't just confined to hospital stays, either. Roger Neifert, director of facilities management, says that although he had worked at a large hospital facility prior to joining YRMC seven and a half years ago, he had never worked at a facility that employed technology like Elvis, the prescription-filling robot.

The robot fills prescriptions using bar codes to eliminate human error, according to Neifert. He recalls it was the first of its kind to be installed and used west of the Mississippi. He also says that it was the third to be used in the entire country.

Schotten, who has worked at YRMC more than 25 years, says that when he first started his career, "you became multitalented due to the needs" of your department. Now he says as a result of technological advances, there is a greater reliance on individuals to specialize.

Brooks agrees, saying "more specialization, more education is required," especially as a result of the proliferation of instruments. He says this translates into a greater demand for trained staff.

Schotten says that he can remember when there were "13 emergency room beds, not staffed 24 hours a day but with people on call." Now, with the addition of an MRI machine, CT scanners and other X-ray machines, he says the emergency room has at least a 37-bed capacity and is staffed 24 hours a day.

According to Schotten, the X-ray department has around 20 to 30 employees alone. "It's just grown leaps and bounds," he says.

With the expansion of both staff and facilities, it is important that YRMC pursue "more efficient use of staff" through the use of centralized databases, says Matowik.

Brooks also says that computerization of data is important in terms of facilitating inventory budgets, tracking diagnostics, increasing the rate of communication and opening up more time for staff to spend with their patients.

He admits that it costs "more money but it's a better process" when hospitals keep up with the latest in medical technology.