St. Joseph’s Health adds operating room, opens second electrophysiology lab

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — St. Joseph’s Health has added a new operating room and opened a new electrophysiology (EP) lab.

Operating room

The new operating room adds the capacity for doctors to perform more than 800 additional surgeries at St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center annually, the organization said.

St. Joseph’s also contends that patients will be able to schedule their surgeries “more quickly” after consultation with their doctors. Patients will also be able to get back to their doctors’ offices faster for post-surgical recovery.

The new operating room has a negative-pressure ante-room, which offers “customized safety for complex patient scenarios.”

“With the flip of a switch,” surgeons can convert the airflow in the small outer room that leads into the operating room from positive pressure to negative pressure, St. Joseph’s noted in a news release.

The new operating room is located in the hospital’s operating suite, which was renovated and reopened in 2013.

Electrophysiology lab

The new electrophysiology (EP) lab represents the first component of its “enhanced” cardiovascular care.

St. Joseph’s second EP lab is part of the cardiovascular center of excellence for the organization’s 150th anniversary capital campaign announced in June.

EP labs conduct tests that help doctors understand the nature of abnormal heart rhythms (arrhythmias).

During electrophysiology tests, patients are mildly sedated and doctors use an electrode catheter to send electrical signals to the patient’s heart and record its electrical activity. The testing is “critical” for detecting irregular heartbeats that follow heart attacks, signify high blood pressure, or simply come with aging, and may cause scarring of the heart, St. Joseph’s said.

Rationale

St. Joseph’s added the new operating room and electrophysiology lab to meet the “growing patient demand” of our current physicians and surgeons, AnneMarie Czyz, COO and chief nursing officer, said in the organization’s news release.

“In fact, because need was growing so quickly, we actually expedited the building and opening of this second EP lab before building out the entire new cardiovascular center of excellence. Patients may have previously had to wait up to six weeks to get into the EP lab, and now they can be seen much more quickly. We’re also adding new equipment to this EP lab, including the first 3D mapping-rhythmia device from Boston Scientific in the region, which allows us to diagnose and treat more complex arrhythmias,” said Czyz.

 Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com