3D Technology Wheels Into Hospital Operating Room

With its recent purchase of advanced 3D imaging equipment, Mission Community Hospital is one step closer to becoming the San Fernando Valley region’s leading provider of advanced spine surgery, hospital officials say. The Panorama City hospital will be the first hospital in San Fernando Valley to use The O-Arm Surgical Imaging System, a device used during orthopedic and trauma-related surgeries. Only about 200 hospitals nationwide have used the O-Arm since it hit the market in 2003, according to the product’s developer, Medtronic Navigation Inc., a Louisville, Co.,-based company that operates as a subsidiary of Medtronic Inc., based in Minneapolis. “By adding the 3D imaging and navigating abilities of the O-Arm system, Mission has positioned itself at the forefront of minimally-invasive spine surgery,” said CEO Heidi Lennartz, in an e-mailed statement. Mission has been in the process of establishing an advanced orthopedic and spine program for more than two years, Lennartz said. As part of this effort, the hospital has attracted 30 spine surgeons from facilities such as Cedars-Sinai Hospital, UCLA Medical Center and St. John’s Hospital, she said. Lennartz called the O-Arm technology “critical” to the hospital’s provision of spinal surgery and noted that it allows for greater precision and accuracy for the complex surgeries. The donut-shaped device allows physicians to take 360-degree 2D and 3D images of a patient’s anatomy, without having to move him or her. It is used by surgeons during surgery, and the images are instantly available in the operating room. The imaging system comes with computer navigation called the StealthStation System, a GPS-like guidance device that enables surgeons to see where the patient’s anatomy is in space. This visualization helps surgeons make less invasive incisions during procedures. “In terms of technology, the O-Arm breaks the mold,” said Natalie St. Denis, Medtronic’s global marketing, communications & medical education director. The starting cost of the O-Arm is about $500,000, she said. Used in Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles for two years, Spine Center Co-Medical Director Dr. Rick Delamarter said the O-Arm is an addition that allows accurate placement of implants up to the millimeter. “If you take a very deformed or arthritic segment of spine that needs to be put back in proper position to allow proper anatomical alignment, you have to put the screws and rods in and there’s a very small area these have to go into,” Delamarter said. “The O-Arm allows us to put them in those areas, exactly, with minimally invasive incisions.” Mission Community Hospital has been providing orthopedic and advanced spine surgeries for more than three years within the hospital’s fully-redesigned Surgical Suite, Lennartz said. The hospital has plans to continue growing these services. It will add 25 newly renovated acute care beds this fall, which will help the hospital to develop its general surgery services and build onto its existing orthopedics/spine program, Lennartz said. She added that the hospital is in the design phase of developing an orthopedic education and training institute on campus, which would add research and development to the services accessible to physicians and surgeons.