New cardiac rehabilitation, PET CT Scanner, ambulatory surgery center, and second surgical robot all provide added healthcare access to residents in west Salt Lake Valley
(PRUnderground) November 26th, 2024
Intermountain Riverton Hospital opened its doors to expand healthcare access to the west side of the Salt Lake Valley 15 years ago. With the exponential growth in this community, there has been an even greater need for patients to access a variety of services. Four new services have been added to the hospital in the past year to bring care closer to home for patients.
Cardiac Rehabilitation
The new cardiac rehabilitation clinic at the hospital will provide patients living in the area easy access to critical services closer to their homes. This will be particularly impactful as patients living in the area navigate their path to recovery following a cardiac event, such as a heart transplant, stent placement, or heart attack.
Following a heart attack, angina, heart surgery or other heart-related events, cardiac rehabilitation (or cardiac rehab for short) takes place in a monitored, supervised, clinical setting, where participants receive coaching and education on exercise guidelines, medication, nutrition, stress management, heart failure and weight training.
Trained exercise specialists monitor the patient’s heart rate and rhythm, blood pressure, blood oxygen levels, and symptoms as they design an exercise program that is appropriate for their situation.
Research has shown that patients sometimes need reassurance to trust their heart again after surgery or a heart procedure. Cardiac rehab helps patients improve their overall health, lower risk of future heart-related problems and regain the highest quality of life possible.
Cardiac rehab has been shown to substantially reduce the risk of death for individuals who have received a qualifying diagnosis or cardiac procedure.
People who attend cardiac rehabilitation programs live longer and are less likely to have a heart attack. Cardiac rehabilitation reduces the chances of being re-hospitalized, helps patients recover strength, and builds skills in managing medications and activities. Participants in cardiac rehabilitation are also less likely to feel depressed.
Mobilized PET CT Scanner
A PET scan and a CT scan are tests that take very clear pictures of the organs in the body. They can see how the inside of the body is working. Today, both of these scans can often be done at the same time using the same machine. These pictures allow the doctor to see more clearly what is going on inside your body.
The focus of the mobilized PET CT scanner is primarily on cancer patients. It provides a follow up for oncology patients to ensure cancer hasn’t spread to the rest of their body. The results are given in a couple of days and images are sent to radiologists. The radiologists reading the x-rays will look at the pictures and see if there is a problem that needs treatment and communicate over to the patient’s doctor.
This state-of-the-art camera can help in providing a diagnosis for cancer, heart or brain problems, see how patients respond to treatment, and look for areas where there is poor blood flow to the heart.
Patients can access this resource via referral from their physician. Currently, the mobilized PET CT scanner operates out of Riverton Hospital on Wednesdays and caters to the southeast corner of the valley.
Ambulatory Surgery Center (ASC)
The ASCs are outpatient surgery centers where patients are able to receive same day surgical care, including diagnostic and preventive procedures.
An ASC specializes in select procedures outside of a hospital setting which allows them to be streamlined because the same procedure is done over and over. This reduces wait times and allows people to get home faster.
Because patients go home the same day, an ASC doesn’t have to have the same volume of staff and equipment to handle overnight stays, which helps lower the overall cost of surgical care.
Second surgical robot
These surgical robots are some of the latest technologies coming to communities.
Though despite the term “robotic,” robots do not perform the surgeries. A surgeon performs the procedures using instruments that are guided via a fiber linked console.
The surgeon makes small incisions on the patient’s abdominal or chest area for placing ports for the camera and robotic arms. Once the robot is docked, the instruments are guided carefully into the surgical field.
The surgeon sits at a master console in the operating room. Using real-time magnified HD-3D view of the operative field, the surgeon’s hand movements are precisely replicated by the robotic instruments in the surgical field.
Currently, Riverton Hospital’s surgeons have found themselves performing many hysterectomies, bowel surgeries, hernia repairs, appendectomies, gallbladder removals, and urology-related surgeries with the surgical robots.
There has been a need for a second robot as surgeons find an urgency for more urgent care-related surgeries. Many emergency surgeries are performed at the hospital. Having the second robot increases access for surgeons in providing and patients receiving best care, improves patient outcomes, and shortens their length of stay at the hospital.
For more information, visit https://intermountainhealthcare.org/locations/riverton-hospital. For up-to-date information and announcements, please see the Intermountain Health newsroom at https://news.intermountainhealth.org.
About Intermountain Health
Headquartered in Utah with locations in six states and additional operations across the western U.S., Intermountain Health is a nonprofit system of 34 hospitals, 400 clinics, medical groups with some 4,600 employed physicians and advanced care providers, a health plans division called Select Health with more than one million members, and other health services. Helping people live the healthiest lives possible, Intermountain is committed to improving community health and is widely recognized as a leader in transforming healthcare by using evidence-based best practices to consistently deliver high-quality outcomes at sustainable costs. For more information or updates, see https://intermountainhealthcare.org/news.
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