Northwest Hospital & Medical Center is the city’s first hospital with advanced surgical suites for minimally invasive surgery. Two operating rooms on the main hospital campus integrate sophisticated computer capabilities with medical technology, enabling surgeons to perform more procedures through tiny incisions in the chest or abdomen.

For more than a decade, Northwest Hospital has been performing laparoscopic surgery. This minimally invasive surgery uses a miniature video camera to see inside the body, allowing surgeons to perform delicate and complex procedures with surgical incisions no more than an inch long. Combined with the sophisticated software available today, surgeons also have the ability to get a second opinion from inside the operating room in real time, as a surgery is being performed.

Surgeons send live images and speak to colleagues via a secure digital phone connection as a procedure happens. Medical records, such as lab results or radiology reports, can also be accessed from the operating room. Integrated voice recognition software makes it easy for medical staff to do everything from changing the view on their camera monitors to adjusting the room temperature and lighting.

General, vascular, thoracic, colorectal, gynecologic, and orthopedic surgeons utilize the new surgical suites.

Northwest Hospital has a long history of promoting minimally invasive procedures as an alternative to open surgery. Among the procedures available at Northwest are adrenalectomy (adrenal gland), appendectomy (appendix), cholecystectomy (gallbladder), colectomy (colon), hernia repair, hysterectomy (uterus), lysis (removal) of adhesions, Nissen fundoplication and Hill procedure (anti-reflux), and splenectomy (spleen).