First Hybrid Operating Room in Williamson County Opened at St. David's Round Rock

Patients in Central Texas whod need complicated heart surgery will no longer need to travel for the best care.

St. David’s Medical Center in Round Rock announced the opening of a new, $2.6 million state-of-the-art hybrid cardiovascular operating room.

“The opening of this hybrid operating room gives us the ability to perform complex procedures that have never been done in Williamson County,” Bradley Boone, M.D., medical director of vascular surgery at Heart Hospital of Austin at St. David’s Round Rock, said in a press release. “We are eliminating the need for patients to travel for state-of-the-art cardiac and vascular care.”

A hybrid operating room allows doctors to conduct relatively serious open surgery or minimally invasive catheter-based techniques — a combined “hybrid” approach — in the same operating room.

The 1,061-square-foot operating room will aid in the early diagnosis and treatment of a wide range of heart conditions. Along with helping doctors during surgeries the new facility will allow hospital staff to conduct medical research projects and stream live and recorded cases to classrooms and remote sites.

“The hybrid operating room is just one example of our commitment to raising the level of cardiovascular care available to Williamson County residents,” Deborah Ryle, chief executive officer of St. David’s Round Rock Medical Center, said in the press release. “This addition makes us the only trauma center in the greater Austin area to have a hybrid operating room.”