What this $10 million room at KGH means for healthcare

It’s a further indication of how modern medicine is changing patient outcomes.

Interior Health (IH) has been showing off their new interventional radiology (IR) suite at Kelowna General Hospital (KGH), which will benefit patients from across the health authority.

A major part of the cost was covered by the KGH Foundation.

The technology is designed to offer minimally invasive procedures for the diagnosis and treatment of various conditions such as: problems with blood vessels, blood clots, cancer care, and the delivery of medicine deep into the body through intravenous tubes.

Since the installation of the previous IR equipment at KGH in 2009, the practice of IR has evolved, with new procedures now being performed on an outpatient basis so fewer patients require a hospital stay.

“Twenty years ago, you’d have surgery and stay for a few days,” Interventional Radiologist, Dr. Nevin De Korompay, explained to reporters when giving the example of how a kidney cancer patient was recently treated.

“Because of this room we’re able to do a combination of live X-Ray, ultrasound, CT scan, we were able to push the bowel out the way and using a needle to the tumor, burn the tumor away and that patient was home for lunch,” he said.

In another example Dr. De Korompay said in the past, a stroke patient may have needed to be transported to Vancouver with all the uncertainties of being on the roads. But now it's different.

"We can take that patient who is horribly disabled, put them on the table, pull the blood clot out and they get better almost instantly."

While acknowledging the huge pressures on the healthcare system due to an ageing demographic, staffing challenges, and massive costs, Health Minister Adrian Dix said technologies like the IR suite are all about being efficient and ultimately reducing the strain on hospitals.

“It seems expensive, it’s from a new era of healthcare, but it makes everything else [in the hospital system] work better, Dix explained. "Diagnostic tools like this turn hospital stays into one-day experiences where you don’t even stay overnight.”

The new IR suite cost $9.6 million of which the KGH Foundation contributed $4.7 million, the Province through Interior Health $3.1 million, and the Central Okanagan Regional Hospital District $1.8 million.