Tonight I got to attend the ribbon cutting at the hospital I am working at in Lufkin, TX. I had been through the building during construction and even toured it earlier in the day. I got the behind the scenes tour up to the helipad on top of the building.
The new tower is amazing and the CEO said it cost 47 million to construct the state of the art Cardiovascular and Stroke Center. Later this month they will start moving departments across a floor at a time.
I got the biggest kick out of the robot in the Emergency Room. It had a screen on the top as the head and the guy running it was in Kansas City and controlling this robot in Texas. It showed his picture and your own picture. He could adjust the picture to pick up groups or zoom in on individuals. What an amazing tool to have a robot that can navigate halls and go room to room with a doctor anywhere there is an internet connection. This was the “Wow Factor” for me.
The bed in the Intensive Care Unit was pretty slick too. It has so many tricks it can do to make the nurses and patients lives better. The bed speaks 25 languages. So if the patient does not speak English they have common care plans loaded and they select what they want from the patient and the language and the bed translates to the patient. Not only does the bed speak 25 languages… It plays music; weighs the patient; rolls the patient side to side and can convert to a chair. It can pound the back (I think she said percussion) to help patients with pneumonia. Let me tell you this thing was quite the improvement over my bed at home.
They have built a Heart Room and a Cath Lab. And one room can convert from a Cath Lab to a Cardiovascular Room so the patient does not need to be moved. The rooms were 900 square feet. They are the largest Cath Labs in the world at the moment. I’m sure someone will build a larger one at some point.
Oh and they were handing out brains at the entrance tonight. They were the little squeeze balls in the shape of a brain. So now I have a spare brain to boot.
So this is what a day in the life can be for me. It was a pretty cool day in general.