The Digital Operating Room – Advanced Technology at Toronto Western Hospital

Toronto Western Hospital's Digital O.R. is central to the teaching and education role that makes Toronto Western Hospital a leader in Canada, and a respected institution worldwide.

"Our Digital O.R. helps provide surgeons with access to, and training on, emerging technologies and medical devices that can provide improved patient outcomes for the growing number of sports-related soft tissue injuries," said Dr. Nizar Mahomed, Director, Arthritis Program, Toronto Western Hospital. "Smith & Nephew Endoscopy's experience and ability to provide customized solutions were the driving forces behind this development partnership."

Essential to the Digital O.R. is a digital image capture system that stores and manages patient images from the operating suite and a state-of-the-art multi-media audio/video system that can be utilized to route real-time surgical images.

"Most advantageous is our advanced multi-media audio video system that controls the flow of video and audio signals within the operating room and throughout the hospital's global network, allowing images to be sent to a consulting physician on another service at the hospital or to a meeting anywhere within the country or across the globe," added Dr. Mahomed.

"The integration of the surgical environment, a central focus of the Digital O.R., has been shown to improve efficiency by reducing operating time and turnaround time, while increasing surgeon control of the operating room equipment and overall operative environment," said Ron Sparks, president, Smith & Nephew Endoscopy. "We are proud to work with Toronto Western Hospital to bring the first arthroscopic Digital O.R. to Canada."

Smith & Nephew Endoscopy's sister division, Smith & Nephew Orthopaedics also contributed to Toronto Western Hospital's new Digital O.R. with the addition of computer-assisted total knee replacement surgery software and instrumentation. Computer-assisted surgery addresses the issue of alignment with an advanced convergence of multiple medical technologies. By combining fluoroscopic images of the femur and tibia with an implant-specific software package, the computer hardware can track the precise position of a patient's leg, the implant and the surgeon's instruments at all times during surgery.