Hybrid Operating Room: A Space Dedicated to Cross-Disciplinary Cardiac Care

When the dust settles on the Ottawa Heart Institute’s new addition in early 2018, one of the innovative new facilities to come online will be a hybrid operating room (OR). It will be a space for surgeons, interventional cardiologists, imaging specialists and other medical professionals to work side-by-side, offering streamlined and enhanced care for many cardiac patients.

A hybrid OR brings together advanced surgical facilities with the resources of a cardiac catheterization lab and expanded imaging capabilities. The cath lab is where non-surgical, catheter-based procedures such as angiograms and angioplasties are performed by interventional cardiologists. The combined facilities of a hybrid OR provide doctors with the ability to perform interventional and surgical procedures at the same time. This saves patients the burden of undergoing separate procedures with separate recovery periods.

Hybrid operating rooms are larger than standard ORs in order to accommodate the additional resources of a catheterization lab, larger teams and preparation stations for multiple procedures.