At Bon Secours Richmond Medical Group, the latest technology enables our physicians to provide exceptional care with safer, more accurate, and less invasive procedures.

Whether it is being able to provide pinpoint radiation in just a few treatments or performing heart surgery without cutting open the chest, these technologies allow physicians to practice medicine at the top of their field. At the same time, using electronic medical records enhance the quality of care for the patient and the quality of life for the physician.

The following examples of technology evolution at Bon Secours Medical Group provide just a sampling of the exciting innovations that are in progress.

Enhancing safety, communication and education

Electronic Medical Records (EMR) provide immediate access to the information that physicians need — in the office, at the hospital or from home. Bon Secours Richmond’s Epic EMR system is an integral component of the good care we offer.

EMR enhances services and quality of care, while also preserving privacy and ensuring safety. Because privacy is a primary concern, the system is extremely secure. In fact, every step a staff or physician makes in the system can be audited.

Being able to access patient information online or to be able to print that information for the patient, allows physicians to better educate patients. You are able to bring up screens to show patients their information and their study results in graphic form.

Because EMR can be accessed from a secure system at home, physicians can sometimes handle calls from home, allowing them to have a better work/life balance.

Robotic instrumentation for cardiothoracic surgeons

The da Vinci® Surgical System, a recent innovation that uses robotic instrumentation to allow cardiothoracic surgeons to operate through a smaller opening, provides an alternative to both traditional open surgery and conventional laparoscopy. This system uses a set of small ports, instead of cutting the chest open and splitting the breast bone.

Working in concert with the da Vinci® Surgical System is the C-Port Flex A. It is a flexible shaft device that automates the attachment, or anastomosis, of a blood vessel graft to a coronary artery during bypass surgery.

Minimally invasive techniques can be used for a variety of procedures, including coronary bypass surgery, mitral valve repair, atrial septal defect (ASD or PFO) closure, or mitral valve replacement. (The latter is performed in cases of mitral valve prolapse, a condition that occurs when the valve does not close properly in the left side of a patient’s heart.)

The da Vinci® Surgical System is available at St. Mary's Hospital and Memorial Regional Medical Center.

Advanced radiation with pinpoint accuracy

Trilogy™ Stereotactic System from Varian Medical Systems is the most advanced medical linear accelerator system in the world. With the Trilogy system every modality of external beam radiation therapy is offered:

• Conventional and 3D conformal radiotherapy (EBR)
• Intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT)
• Image-guided radiotherapy (IGRT)
• Stereotactic radio-therapy (SRT)

The Trilogy's tightly focused radiation beams have unmatched accuracy. This allows physicians to treat very small lesions and tumors that are close to vital structures, while avoiding or minimizing damage to surrounding healthy tissue.

With the stereotactic's pinpoint accuracy, patients’ treatment plans for cancers of the brain, spine and lung can be decreased from the typical 20 to 30 treatments to two to five.

Computer-guided imagery for brain surgery

The Brain Lab™ System offers computer-guided imagery for surgeons who perform complex surgeries of the brain, back, neck and sinuses.

With this technology, surgeons view a three-dimensional image inside a patient's head or sinus cavity and can pinpoint the exact location of surgical instruments. This enables the surgeon to navigate areas of the anatomy previously unable to reach. For example, with brain tumor procedures, the surgeon may be able to remove more of the tumor and reduce the amount of surrounding healthy tissue damaged.

Some of the neurosurgery services offered:

• Computer-assisted surgeries for spinal disorders including microscopic and endoscopic surgery
• Intracranial vascular surgery
• Carotid artery surgery and endovascular treatment
• Surgical treatment for epilepsy
• Surgical treatment for movement disorders including Parkinson's disease
• Spinal tumors and vascular lesions
• Surgical treatment for trigeminal neuralgia and hemifacial spasm
• Surgery for pituitary tumors
• Multidisciplinary treatment of complex skull base tumors
• Multidisciplinary treatment of complex peripheral nerve disorders

Incision-less bariatrics procedure

Richmond Surgical Bariatrics Group at Bon Secours St. Mary's Hospital is one of the first centers in the United States and currently the only hospital in Virginia to offer a new incision-less procedure to reverse weight gain after gastric bypass surgery.

The procedure, which physicians have coined "ROSE" (Restorative Obesity Surgery, Endolumenal), reduces the size of a patient's stomach pouch and stoma to its original post-gastric bypass proportions to help the patient get back on the path to weight loss. An estimated 125,000 patients are candidates waiting for an incision-less revision procedure.

The demand for ROSE comes from the fact that up to 44 percent of patients who undergo gastric bypass begin to regain weight. To date, revision options have been expensive, difficult to perform and risky for the patient because of the scar tissue left from the original operation, effectively leaving them without any treatment options. The ROSE procedure offers a much less invasive way to correct weight regain.