Annual Report 2020
Surgical Center
Tetsufumi Sato, Kazumi Ishii
Introduction
The Surgical Center deals with all types of malignant neoplasms. Our mission is to provide safe surgical care for patients (Safe Surgery Saves Lives). Several groups collaborate to ensure the optimal surgical care, consisting of anesthesiologists, surgeons from 18 surgical oncology departments, nurses, and medical-technical staff with support staff from radiology, clinical laboratory and pharmacy.
The Team and What We Do
During the period from April 2020 to March 2021, the Surgical Center supported 5096 surgical cases and 4757 general anesthesia surgical cases (Tables 1, 2). The number of surgeries in 2020 decreased by approximately 10% compared with 2019 due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. For all surgical patients, a COVID-19 PCR test was performed preoperatively for cluster prevention and safe postoperative management. In addition, all staff were provided full PPE for surgical response in emergency surgery for patients with fever at night when PCR testing was not available.
The da Vinci Xi Robotic Surgical System was introduced to provide less invasive surgery for patients with prostate cancer in 2012. In December 2020, the system was equipped with two da Vinci Xi units, and in 2020, 196 robot-assisted surgeries were performed in five departments: urology, colorectal surgery, esophageal surgery, gynecology, and gastric surgery.
The post-anesthesia care unit has been a part of the Surgical Center since 2015. The multidisciplinary meeting started in 2014. The multidisciplinary team includes medical doctors, nurses, and medical engineers (MEs), and they meet to plan the optimal surgical pathway during surgery.
The Surgical Center staff actively works as part of a multidisciplinary team in planning the best use of the operating rooms. Scheduling, equipment usage, and staffing in 16 operating suites were evaluated to establish an optimal work flow, streamline room turnover, and improve start times. A medical device nurse, who is engaged in equipment usage, has been assigned.
Training
All surgical oncology departments have their own training programs for their fellows with the support of the Surgical Center staff. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the training in the operating rooms for foreign doctors was temporarily suspended in 2020. As for domestic medical personnel, we accepted them for the surgical training and observation required for da Vinci surgical qualification. We also provided clinical training for medical and nursing students.
Table1. Number of operations (April 2020 - March 2021)
Table 2. Total number of anesthesia cases (April 2020 - March 2021)