A London hospital reduced the time to perform a variety of operations by 75% to 95%. It came up with the idea after viewing Formula One pit stops, which get faster with each passing year.
In the hospital, patients are processed in parallel in high-intensity theaters rather than one after another. “Under the innovative model, two operating theaters run side by side and as soon as one procedure is finished the next patient is already under anesthetic and ready to be wheeled in.”
Kariem El-Boghdadly, a consultant anesthetist who helped design the program, said, “We delete any downtime. We get rid of any time that the operating theatre does not have a patient in it being operated on.”
A news article reported that:
- “The surgical team got through 21 operations on 20 patients and finished by lunchtime. Normally they would do six such procedures and be working all day.”
- Surgeons are “performing an entire week’s operations in a single day.”
- Surgeons operated on “three months’ worth of breast cancer patients in five days.”
- Surgeons did seven days’ worth of robot-assisted prostatectomies in one day.
- Surgeons did 12 knee replacements in a day, compared to three or four in the past.
- The time needed to sterilize the operating theater fell from 40 minutes to less than 2 minutes.
Productivity gains ranged from 300 percent to 1,900 percent, depending on the procedure.
Since 1990, Formula One pit stops have gotten five times faster, going from 8.95 seconds to 1.78 seconds — 80% less time. And pit stops are still taking 5% less time each year.
Medicine is advancing in other ways as well.
Scientists have developed tiny robots made of human cells to repaid damaged cells. Nanorobots are also being used to fight cancer. “In a major advancement in nanomedicine, Arizona State University scientists…have successfully programmed nanorobots to shrink tumors by cutting off their blood supply,” reported Next Big Future.
Doctors recently used a surgical robot to carry out incredibly complicated spinal surgery. Doctors also recently did the first robotic liver transplant in America.
Scientists have developed tiny robots made of human cells to repair damaged cells. Nanorobots are also being used to fight cancer. “In a major advancement in nanomedicine, Arizona State University scientists…have successfully programmed nanorobots to shrink tumors by cutting off their blood supply,” reported Next Big Future.
Artificial intelligence is now developing highly-effective antibodies to fight disease. Doctors overseas are using artificial intelligence to detect cases of breast cancer more effectively.
