Patients recover much more quickly from surgery when surrounded by loved ones and the comforts of home. Hospitals (well, the health insurance companies, really) have been capitalizing on this by minimizing the amount of time recuperating patients remain in hospital before being discharged.

Surgery in hospitals is generally carried out on one floor, while the overnight wards are on another. Patients prepped for surgery are whisked through the stark cold corridors and elevators. Afterwards, they are whisked again, this time unconscious.

Now ,it could be no more tricky, traumatic and/or unhygenic to whisk a prepped patient from his or her bedroom and out into the street.

So, let us downsize the hospital completely to just the Operating Room, and make that completely mobile. Now the surgical team will come to your street, prep you in the comfort of your own home, carry out the surgery in the mobile unit, then return you to your own bed to recuperate in style.

(I realize that some surgery requires somewhat intensive monitoring afterward to ensure the patients actually recover. This will be accomplished by portable monitoring systems, home care professionals and the surgical unit sticking around long enough to deal with relapses.)
-- dalek, Jan 15 2003

Mobile OR http://www.mills-tui.co.nz/mobile.htm
Artic (18-wheeler) based operating theatre [oneoffdave, Oct 21 2004]

I'm pretty sure things like this already exist for use in some African countries to take healthcare out to remote rural areas, and for disaster relief - a complete operating theatre suite that packs up into a couple of freight containers. The miltary have also had stuff like this for years.

Using it in a civilian, urban context is new, though. And to be fair I can't see too much wrong with the idea. One of these uints could drive up to an apartment block and "process" all the people needing treatment. Then when it leaves, the "aftercare" truck turns up for a couple of days.
-- 8th of 7, Jan 15 2003


The technology appears to be baked [link] but the practice apparently isn't. The set-up/strike time might make this a little un-economic unless they did all the opertions that everyone in the street needed on the same day.
-- oneoffdave, Jan 15 2003


/And to be fair I can't see too much wrong with the idea/

"Oi! You can't park that thing 'ere!"
-- egbert, Jan 15 2003


I thought Mobile is in AL, not OR.
-- waugsqueke, Jan 15 2003


I awake every morning amoungst garbage bags and chip packets,i would'nt want to wake up back there with a 150 stitches after the labot. ;))
-- skinflaps, Jan 15 2003


whilst paging through a 12 year old National Geographic magazines (those yellow things) I came accross an article about a plane that is a mobile eye hospital in Asia. They also do spectacles, grind the lenses right there while cutting out some corneas.
-- Trodden, Jan 16 2003


Would your home be sterile enough to operate in? (I'm not criticizing your domestic cleanliness, I'm only asking.)
-- kropotkin, Jan 16 2003


// i would'nt want to wake up back there with a 150 stitches after the labot. //

We didn't think you noticed the first time round ....

[bliss] Oooh, you are making soooooo much trouble for yourelf ........
-- 8th of 7, Jan 17 2003



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