Jacksonville, Florida, April 9, 2009 -- U.S. Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) visited Jacksonville today to announce a $235,000 Federal appropriation for Wolfson Children's Hospital sponsored by him, U.S. Senator Mel Martinez (R-FL), U.S. Congressman Ander Crenshaw and U.S. Congresswoman Corrine Brown.
The funding will go toward a $4 million intraoperative MRI, which will be installed in the new patient care tower that will be built on the Baptist Medical Center campus. For cost efficiency, the advanced equipment will be shared by Wolfson Children's Hospital and Baptist Downtown, and used for both pediatric and adult neurosurgery patients. It is part of a $6 million project, which will include construction of a specially shielded neurosurgical operating room to house the MRI for patient, physician and staff safety.
"Having the MRI in the neurosurgical OR will permit not only the on-site evaluation of brain and spinal tumors and lesions, but also will allow the neurosurgeon to make an immediate assessment to determine if all of the tumor or lesion has been removed prior to surgical closure," explains pediatric neurosurgeon Hector James, MD, medical director of the Lucy Gooding Children's Neurosurgery Center at Wolfson Children's Hospital.
"The advantages of the on-site MRI include significantly reducing the risk of having to return to the operating room for further surgery because it detects incomplete tumor removal while the patient is still in surgery rather than afterwards," says a Howard C. Chandler, Jr., MD, a neurosurgeon with Lyerly Neurosurgery Baptist Health. "Patient safety and outcomes are greatly enhanced."
Hugh Greene, president and CEO of Baptist Health, says: "We are thankful to Senator Nelson and Senator Martinez and Congressman Crenshaw and Congresswoman Brown for their support of this appropriation, which will benefit children with serious brain and spine conditions for years to come. We are committed to providing the latest technology that will improve our patients' quality of life and in many cases, save their lives."
The Pediatric Neurosurgery division at Wolfson Children's Hospital provides the area's most comprehensive neurosurgical care, with 24-hour inpatient care complemented by outpatient consultations and specialty clinics. Through the center's affiliation with the University of Florida Health Science Center, Wolfson serves as a regional referral center for infants, children and adolescents with a wide variety of disorders and diseases of the brain, spinal cord, nerves and muscles. Working closely with referring physicians and other pediatric specialists, the center's board-certified neurosurgeons not only care for children throughout Northeast Florida and Southeast Georgia, but also special patients from around the world.
In 2008, U.S. Congressman Ander Crenshaw announced a Federal appropriation of $473,707 toward the cost of $1.4 million flat-panel, biplane acquisition, digital equipment for the pediatric cardiac catheterization laboratory at Wolfson Children's Hospital. Senator Nelson, who toured the facility on April 9, 2009, spearheaded the effort to secure the funding with Congressman Crenshaw. GE Healthcare's Innova 2121 is designed to limit radiation exposure to the child, physicians and staff and reduce the need for rescanning. The new technology also significantly enhances the quality of images. It was the first biplane flat-panel system GE Healthcare had ever installed in a pediatric lab in the country.