Rouge Valley surgeon Dr. Jason Wong says the MIS high-tech equipment and skilled physicians are speeding up recoveries for patients.

Rouge Valley Health System is proud to offer unique state-of-the-art equipment and expertise, which allows surgical patients from west Durham and east Toronto to recover more quickly following surgeries.

"Our cutting-edge Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) is much less intrusive than traditional surgeries, which require larger incisions and corresponding recovery times," says Dr. Jason Wong, surgeon in charge of MIS at Rouge Valley. The current MIS Suite is located at Rouge Valley Centenary hospital site, in east Toronto. (Rouge Valley Ajax and Pickering hospital site is now also to have an MIS suite!)

Rouge Valley is the only community hospital in the Greater Toronto Area to have the MIS Suite, which began receiving patients in December 2004. The $350,000 MIS Suite is essentially a high-tech system offering multi-screen video monitoring of operations performed through incisions as small as five centimeters in length.

Using a micro-camera with its own light, both placed at the end of a thin cable inside the patient’s body, live video images are available on three screens to surgeons and operating room staff during procedures.

The camera becomes the surgeon’s eyes, eliminating the need for larger incisions, to view and access internal organs for procedures including laparoscopic (or abdomen) and thoracoscopic (or lung) surgeries. Appendectomies, gallbladder procedures, removal of kidney, spleen, adrenal glands and ovaries and ovarian cysts, hiatus hernia repairs, biopsies, bowel resections and other procedures are now performed using Rouge Valley’s MIS Suite.

There are several benefits to patients as a result of this new technology.

The suite allows patients to recover more quickly from this "keyhole surgery," so nicknamed because of the small incisions it allows, explains Dr. Wong. MIS Suite patients also experience fewer infections and less scarring.

The suite has also helped Rouge Valley fulfill its commitment to bring the latest in excellent healthcare, and related technology, closer to its communities.

"Prior to December (2004) when our MIS Suite went into use, patients in Durham and east Toronto communities had to wait longer and travel farther for procedures done to access this operating room technology. Now that we have it at Rouge Valley, they don’t have to wait nearly as long and have much less travel to get the benefits of this technology.

Dr. Wong also sees major education benefits and expects a mentorship program to begin in the hospital to help train surgeons on minimal access techniques. "By improving our collective skills in minimal access surgery, we can offer this beneficial technique to more people."

The MIS Suite is located on the second floor of Rouge Valley Centenary in the Operating Room section.

The MIS Suite, by the Stryker Corporation, includes:

• Central control station, touch panel interface controlling images, audio and data;
• Three high resolution flat-panel monitors displaying pictures from one five-milimetre digital video scope camera, placed inside the patient;
• A built-in light on the high-definition digital camera;
• Voice activation, allowing nurses and doctors to control the system remotely;
• Digital documentation, converting still images, video and dictation to a CD, DVD or network allowing information to be stored in the greatest of detail;
• Connectivity of the operating room to any connected location inside or outside of the hospital;
• Ceiling-mounted lights.

Minimally Invasive Surgery procedures available at Rouge Valley Health System include: lap cholecystectomy; lap inguinal herniorrhaphy, lap appendectomy, laparascopy (diagnostic), lap ovarian cystectomy, hysterectomy, lap fundoplication, lap bowel resection, lap splenectomy, lap adrenalectomy, lap nephrectomy, lap vaginal, thoracoscopic pleurectomy, thoracoscopic lung biopsy/resection.

Patient benefits of the Minimally Invasive Surgery Suite:

• Smaller incisions;
• Less post-operative discomfort or pain because of the smaller incisions;
• Faster recovery;
• Less scarring;
• Earlier return home and to work.

• MAS Suite went into use in December 2004;
• More than 100 surgery patients a month benefit from the RVHS MIS Suite;
• RVHS is the only community GTA hospital to have a MIS Suite, outside of downtown Toronto.

Much of the money for the $350,000 suite was donated through legacy gifts to the Rouge Valley Health System Foundation, reinforcing the importance of planned giving. Johnson and Johnson Inc. donated the cost for a high-tech nursing station in the suite, incorporating state-of-the-art computers that allow nursing staff and doctors to closely monitor patients during Minimally Invasive Surgery. An anonymous donor generously provided funding for a harmonic scalpel, which uses ultrasonic technology to improve surgical precision and reduce tissue damage and blood loss. Proceeds from a Rouge Valley Gala and a holiday mailout also helped.