3 Brightside Rd, Epsom, Auckland 1023
PO Box 26064, Epsom, Auckland 1344
brightside@southerncrosshospitals.co.nz
Angela Hitchen (Acting GM)
Hospital facilities
Hospital facilities
Brightside offers credentialled practitioners and their patients access to four advanced operating theatres with special features such as a visual/digital theatre, laminar low and state-of-the-art theatre equipment. These facilities are supported by the latest sterilisation and anaesthetic technologies and systems. The hospital’s Intermediate Care Facility (ICF), a ward which contains state-of-the-art dynamic monitoring equipment, is a new development in post-operative care.
Advanced technologies
A number of Brightside’s four advanced operating theatres are equipped with special features such as visual/digital theatre equipment. One theatre also allows the use of laminar low technology (a system that has been developed for use in modern orthopaedic operating theatres to reduce the number of infective organisms present in the air by using a continuous flow of highly filtered ‘bacteria-free’ air in the operating field).
These facilities are supported by some of the latest technologies in a theatre sterilisation systems unit, and modern anaesthetic systems.
Intermediate care facility
Brightside hospital boasts an Intermediate Care Facility (ICF), which is a specialised post-operative ward for patients with medical conditions or surgical issues that require an enhanced level of monitoring and care. The special ward has been designed to cater for patients who unexpectedly require some extra post-surgical care or for patients with medical issues - such as heart or blood pressure conditions - that have the potential to cause complications during or after surgery.
Intermediate Care is a fairly new term that describes a standard of care intermediate to that of a general ward bed and a High Dependency Unit (HDU). It provides a capability for invasive monitoring (such as arterial lines) and medical infusions, and a 24-hour monitoring service.
Nurses staffing the ICF have received specialised training to equip them with the knowledge and skills to deliver a more sophisticated level of care.
The new facility means that credentialled practitioners can choose to expand on the conditions under which they operate, as issues that may develop post-operatively can now be dealt with using more technology and with nursing staff individualised to the patient.
3D HD surgical system
The state-of-the-art 3D HD surgical video system installed at our Brightside hospital has the ability to transform the way laparoscopic surgeries are carried out, and was the first of its kind to be commissioned in New Zealand.
The Olympus 3D HD system essentially provides a realistic view of the tissue being worked on, leading to increased precision and accuracy, and consequently may reduce the amount of time a patient spends under general anaesthesia and in hospital.
Having an improved spatial view of the anatomy contributes to faster, safer and more accurate suturing, grasping and dissection during difficult surgical tasks, and is particularly beneficial in the identification of blood vessels and nerves.
Overseas researchers conclude that laparoscopic training on a 3D system could shorten the learning curve for surgeons - eliminating the need to overcome the loss of stereoscopic vision.