Healthcare Journal of Baton ROuge
I
MAY / JUN 2017
17
technology, but it has been shown to have
less blood loss, faster recovery. I don’t think
we can actually charge for using a robot, it’s
just a better quality of care for the patient.
Another big thing, in vascular surgery
for instance, is what you call an OR hybrid
room. I can remember we talked about it
several years ago, saying, “Oh, it’s going to
cost over a million dollars, can we afford
this?” Well, it’s a room where you actually
have an operating room and an intensive
imaging device from the ceiling. So, we can
do balloons and stents and do surgery in the
same room. I can tell you right now, it’s dif-
ficult to get that room. Everybody wants to
use it. It allows you to do both in one room
so it’s quicker, it’s safer, you just do a bet-
ter job. That’s been a major advance. And
the thing in surgery now is, we are mov-
ing a lot more to be non-invasive. When I
was trained, everything was open surgery.
Now, sixty percent of what I do is endovas-
cular, where we use a balloon or stent, we do
appendectomies, we do different things per-
cutaneously without making an incision, and
that has kind of been the big push among
all of the fields.
Editor
What are some of the challenging
issues in the Chief Medical Officer role?
Olinde
Well I can tell you the hard thing
for me is that the CMO is an administrative
job. And then here I am, I’m cut from the
other side. I have to kind of wear different
“Another big thing, in vascular surgery for
instance, is what you call an OR hybrid room…
it’s a roomwhere you actually have an operating
room and an intensive imaging device from the
ceiling. So, we can do balloons and stents and do
surgery in the same room. I can tell you right now,
it’s difficult to get that room. Everybody wants to
use it.”
Photo courtesy of Baton Rouge General Medical Center