WESTCHESTER, Ill., April 11, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Baptist Health
of Northeast Florida will be the first health system in North
America to offer intra-operative imaging during pediatric and adult
brain surgery and non-surgical radiosurgical procedures with the
Brainlab Brainsuite® iMRI (intra-operative magnetic resonance
imaging), featuring the GE Healthcare 1.5T Optima™ MR450w
wide-bore scanner, and Brainsuite® iCT (intra-operative
computed tomography), featuring the Siemens SOMATOM® Sensation
Open CT scanner. They will be integrated into a new 11-story
patient care tower scheduled to open in December 2012.
Two Baptist Health hospitals—Baptist Medical Center and
Wolfson Children’s Hospital—will be able to efficiently share
the technology for neurosurgical procedures. The hospitals are
well-known nationally for neurosurgery, and Baptist Medical Center
was named in U.S. News & World Report‘s “Best Hospitals
2009-2010” and among the top 50 hospitals for neurology and
neurosurgery.
“We’re pleased to be able to provide our community with
technology that can aid in the success of brain procedures,” said
John Wilbanks, executive vice president and chief operating
officer, Baptist Health. “Brainsuite offers the possibility that
patients will need fewer procedures and have better outcomes.”
Brainsuite iMRI and iCT will create digitally integrated
operating rooms that can provide intra-operative, diagnostic iMRI
and iCT imaging and patient data. This will help to allow adult and
pediatric neurosurgeons to determine a tumor’s location and remove
additional tumor cells while avoiding critical functional areas of
the brain—all during the same procedure. Rather than waiting
until after surgery to determine whether a procedure has removed
diseased tissue from the brain (as is done traditionally), patients
can be evaluated in the OR, while still under anesthesia, and
neurosurgeons can perform additional surge
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