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SALT LAKE CITY — Kaci Whitby said she never had any concerns while being cared for at the Huntsman Cancer Institute while she underwent multiple surgeries — including a double mastectomy, three reconstructive surgeries and the insertion of a port for chemotherapy.
She said shortly before her surgery, a doctor redrew the plan, changing it to what he thought was best for her instead of using a standard approach. Whitby said doctors listened to her when she wanted to try something different. When she asked about doing all of the chemotherapy preparation on the day of her first treatment, her doctors worked to accommodate what she thought was best for herself.
“I’ve always had a lot of respect for my doctors here at Huntsman,” she said. “I truly have come to believe and know that they truly care about me as a patient and I’m not just like another number or another surgery.”
She said she choose Huntsman for her care because it offered comprehensive care — Whitby was able to have an oncologist, surgeon and plastic surgery specialist all at the same location.
“Everything I needed to make my care whole, like it was one seamless transition from one to the next,” she said.
Whitby said during her surgeries she never worried about safety and contracting diseases; she said doctors and nurses were doing their best to keep her safe, even when it meant the facility did not allow her to bring in chocolate cookies or flowers, instead having her view flowers from a friend through a glass window designed for that purpose.
The Huntsman Cancer Institute is preparing to open its operating rooms in the Kathryn F. Kirk Center, an expansion of the Huntsman Cancer Institute. The operating rooms contain a lot of new technology and carefully chosen designs to keep patients comfortable and safe.
New sanitizing technology
Stuart Breen previously worked as graveyard supervisor over the surgical team at the University of Utah and was responsible for end-of-the-day deep cleaning, so when he was involved in designing the operating rooms in the new building for the Huntsman Cancer Institute, he brought a lot of experience with sanitizing techniques.
He said a sanitizing tower is often used; it has motion sensors and will only run when no one is in the room. However, he said the tower needs to be moved around to get the entire room and can’t work behind any obstructions, so the facility needed a better solution for the new operating rooms since operating rooms have a lot of obstacles.
Breen said many of the people receiving surgery at the Huntsman Cancer Institute are undergoing chemotherapy and have weakened immune systems, so it is even more imperative that they not contract an infection during a surgery while they are more vulnerable.
“When you put your patients on the table and they’re doing surgery, they’re extremely susceptible to potential infection. That’s why … we’re very regimented in how clean the room is and making sure that there’s sterile procedure always going on,” he said.
What the Huntsman Cancer Institute settled on is sterilizing ceiling lights: The lights in the room are constantly sterilizing the room whenever they are on — but they are also set to go into a deeper sterilization process with a deep blue when the room is empty that would harm humans if they were in the room. If someone walks in, it will automatically shut off.
“This is a continuous disinfectant system,” Breen said.
He said there is always potential for people to be spreading pathogens, and this system is able to combat that. At another hospital, a study showed the lights led to a 75% reduction in surgical site infections.
Breen said the hospital also installed air filters within the entire operating area that create an “air curtain,” keeping pathogens from the hallways from coming into the area when the doors open for various reasons.
He said the lights and air filters working together increase the likelihood of a positive outcome for a patient, and reduce infections.
“We spent a lot of time researching and trying to find out what was the best way that we can provide a clean and safe environment for our patients,” Breen said.
He also said managers were careful with the flooring they selected and chose something that was not likely to be scratched if a tool dropped on it — doctors don’t catch tools when they drop to avoid being cut by them. He said they tested samples of flooring by throwing scalpels at them, and the resin flooring built with quartz and glass they picked never got a scratch.
Breen said scratches are places where germs can grow, so having a smooth floor is important, and having a resilient floor will eliminate the need to consistently repair the flooring.
He hopes they see good results in these four new operating rooms and are able to implement the technologies in the other eight rooms at the Huntsman Cancer Institute and in the main U. Health hospital.
Nurses provide patient-centered care
Julie Howells has worked as a nurse in operating rooms at the Huntsman Cancer Institute for decades, and she said the growth from eight to 12 operating rooms is very needed. She is currently the operating room manager and helps keep everything running smoothly.
The first operation in the new center is scheduled for Sept. 11, and she said the operating rooms are almost fully booked as they open in phases while hiring enough staff to perform the operations and have beds available for inpatient surgeries.
“I hate to say it but more and more patients, or people, are presented with cancer — and so we needed to expand,” she said.
Cancer care often involves surgery to remove cancerous cells, and Howells said the extra rooms will help them get patients to surgery more quickly.
Howells said nurses are responsible for interviewing the patient before the surgery in a pre-op room to ask about allergies and health conditions and talk to them and comfort them, before helping hook them up to monitors and put the patient to sleep. A nurse is the “biggest patient advocate” who is there to take care of someone when they are put to sleep and have no control.
She said there are at least four people around the table during an operation, including the nurse, surgeon, a resident or fellow and the scrub tech who sets up the instruments. A nurse is responsible to facilitate the room and to order blood if it is needed.
Operating rooms are kept cold, because surgeons and others in the room often need to wear a lot of layers, but Howells said they are prepared with pads under the patient to keep them warm and tools that blow hot air like a blanket directly over the patient.
“We have everything you need to keep the patient warm, but the staff and providers cool,” she said.
She also said they have technology available that helps specifically with breast surgeries. Medical professionals can put affected tissue in the machine and it will help surgeons learn if they have found all of the cancer tissue and where cancer tissue is — while putting the information into the patient’s chart.
Howells pointed out multiple screens around the operating room and said they are all used, showing different things during a surgery like vital signs, the patient’s chart and the procedure itself when doing a laparoscopic or robotic procedure.
Importance of cancer screenings
Jade Barton, of Vernal, also had surgery at the Huntsman Cancer Institute. She walked through the new operating room and said it looks updated and modern and the recovery rooms are substantially bigger.
“This would have been nice,” she said.
Barton had a lumpectomy about two months ago. She was diagnosed in March with breast cancer while it was still stage 1. The surgeon could not feel the lump in her breast with a physical exam because it was so small, but they were able to remove it and she was released from the hospital that same day.
She said her surgeon was calm and gave her all the information she needed. She said once she got through an appointment with the surgeon, she felt better about the situation.
“She made me feel like I could do this. … She told me how it was going to go from Day 1 until I’m done. And it has gone exactly how she said it was and I had no surprises,” Barton said.
She is currently doing four weeks of radiation treatments and will take a hormone-blocking medication to prevent the same type of cancer from coming back. She encouraged women to get screened regularly for breast cancer, because catching it early made a significant difference for her.
Barton said she will be done with her treatments before the end of summer, only a few months after treatments started.
“I’m on the road, I’m almost there,” she said.
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