Lt. Cmdr. John-Paul Rue, orthopedic surgeon at U.S. Naval Hospital Okinawa, uses one of the hospital’s new high-tech endoscopy systems to look inside the knee of a surgery patient Friday. The equipment allows doctors to view procedures in high definition. (Fred Zimmerman / S&S)
CAMP LESTER, Okinawa — Snapshots instead of scars: That’ll be more of the focus of medical treatment at the U.S. Naval Hospital here, thanks to the hospital’s four new endoscopy systems, said Lt. Cmdr. John-Paul Rue, orthopedic surgeon.
The equipment lets a surgeon make a small incision in a patient, then insert pencil-sized cameras and lights into the area being examined. The cameras then sends images to the monitor the surgeon is watching to guide the procedure.
Each setup includes new cameras and light sources, a flat panel high-definition monitor, digital video and still-photo capture devices and a printer.
Rue said the hospital’s former equipment was at the end of its life cycle and built with components from various companies. “Some pieces worked together, others did not,” he said. “If one piece wasn’t working, the whole system wasn’t working. Now, with everything standardized from one company, all of the components are interchangeable” among the four systems.
The equipment is from Stryker, a medical equipment and supply company, which last week sent representative Casey Tisdale to ensure the hospital staff knew how to operate it. He said the high-definition gear lets doctors see “double what they would see in a regular monitor. And they’re now able to archive images with the capture device and streaming video.”
The Okinawa hospital staff one day could use the images and video to consult with doctors in the States, Tisdale said, reducing the number of patients returned to the States for consultations.
Rue said the state-of-the-art equipment also should benefit patients; it “will result in much better visualization during procedures … and that’s the key to ensuring patient safety in this setting.” The equipment’s quality also should decrease the amount of time patients spend in surgery, he said.
“Our goal is to offer our patients the same expert level of care that they would expect to receive at a place like Johns Hopkins or any other top-notch hospital,” Rue said. “We have the professionals and now we have the technology.”
