STERIS (NYSE:STE) and Toshiba America Medical Systems have struck a deal to collaborate on creating “hybrid” operating rooms for hospital customers.
Selling equipment for hybrid operating rooms is expected to be an increasingly important revenue generator for Mentor, Ohio-based STERIS, which has seen a surge in demand surrounding this next-generation surgical suites.
Hybrid operating rooms are the product of two needs for most hospitals: better quality of care and better cost-efficiency. Hybrids meet these needs by combining minimally invasive and interventional surgical technologies with medical imaging and communications in one operating room.
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While STERIS makes products for an operating room’s infrastructure — lights, tables, booms and communications equipment — it doesn’t do medical imaging. That’s where the alliance with Toshiba, one of the world’s leading imaging companies, comes in. STERIS has previously struck similar deals with imaging giants like GE Healthcare and Philips Healthcare.
In the traditional hospital model, interventional procedures like heart catheterizations are done in separate rooms from medical imaging, which is done in separate rooms from surgeries. The new hybrid model combines a full range of interventional, imaging and surgical services in one place.
“Hybrid operating rooms offer tremendous opportunities to advance care, but designing and building these complex rooms is a huge task,” said Robert Popilock, senior market development manager with STERIS. “Challenges such as how to eliminate collision points for equipment, optimize circulator pathways and provide ergonomic and intuitive tools at the surgical field must be addressed.”