A new, state-of-the-art surgical facility is opening in Northwest D.C. next month.
The Verstandig Pavilion at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital will feature a cutting-edge MRI system that slides on a track between operating rooms and gives doctors access to real-time imaging.
“This is a very quick process. It takes about five minutes for the machine to track into the operating room directly to the patient, so it’s very safe from a patient safety standpoint,” said Dr. Christopher Kalhorn, professor of neurosurgery at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital.
He said it only takes a matter of minutes for the doctors to obtain scans from the IMRIS system. Hospital officials said the movable interoperative MRI system is the only one in the D.C. region and one of only four in the country.
The five-floor pavilion also features an emergency department nearly double the size of the facility that it’s replacing. The new emergency department will include 32 private examination rooms. The Verstandig Pavilion also includes the hospital campus’s first rooftop helipad and 31 operating rooms.
D.C.-area based philanthropist Grant Verstandig donated $50 million to the hospital to make the new surgical space a reality.
“As we built the Pavilion, we had one foot in today — building a facility that reflects the knowledge and the full capabilities of medicine as we know it today — but also one foot in tomorrow,” said Kenneth A. Samet, president and chief executive officer of MedStar Health, on Thursday.
“We built a facility with comprehensive flexibilities, so that as medicine continues to evolve, we can make certain that this pavilion and the caregivers that are in it will be able to meet whatever challenges and whatever needs we have in the decades to come.”
The Verstandig Pavilion will be fully operational Dec. 13. The Emergency Department opens Dec. 10.
