The multifunctional therapy room of the future: image guidance, interdisciplinarity, integration and impact on patient pathways

Eur Radiol. 2000;10(11):1763-9. doi: 10.1007/s003300000485.

Abstract

With few exceptions the interventional rooms of the present are either imaging suites or sterile operating rooms. Their users are restricted to either percutaneous procedures or to two-staged image-guided surgery without intra-operative imaging control. Since interventional therapy of the future will be minimally invasive and since minimally invasive therapy is essentially image-guided therapy, a new physical place for these activities has to be devised: the multifunctional therapy room of the future integrates sophisticated imaging and image guidance modalities together with advanced surgical and life-support equipment in a sterile environment [1, 2, 3]. Even given a high degree of integration, this will be a complex and costly piece of medical technology. These two factors--complexity and cost-- require interdisciplinary technological and medical collaboration to bring it into existence, distribute its cost and maximize usage and medical benefit. Yet another dimension of multifunctionality will be introduced and a significant impact on the care of vitally threatened patients will be exerted by using this room not only for elective image-guided therapy but also for emergent one-stop diagnosis and treatment. Motivation, technology, implementation strategies and funding of this image-guided, integrated and interdisciplinary therapy room, as well as a comprehensive approach combining emergency care and elective computer-assisted therapy (CAT), are discussed in this paper.

MeSH terms

  • Critical Pathways
  • Diagnostic Imaging
  • Hospital Design and Construction / trends*
  • Hospital Units* / trends
  • Humans
  • Operating Rooms
  • Radiology Department, Hospital
  • Radiology, Interventional* / trends