David Torchiana, MD, CEO and president of Boston-based Partners HealthCare, defended concurrent surgeries Thursday at a city chamber of commerce forum, according to the Boston Business Journal.
Partners' Boston-based Massachusetts General Hospital was recently put under the microscope by The Boston Globe for surgeons performing two surgeries at once. However, when asked at the forum of the practice, Dr. Torchiana said the practice, which is universal at teaching hospitals, is extremely beneficial to residents in training and in times of crisis.
"Let me just say in particular one of the places we overlap rooms is in trauma," Dr. Torchiana said, according to the report. "And thank goodness we do that. Because there are people in this city who are alive in this city today after the Boston Marathon bombings that went to all of our teaching hospitals and we opened up rooms and did a bunch of surgeries simultaneously … you want to be able to do that safely and well."
According to the report, Dr. Torchiana also said concurrent surgeries are not performed frequently and when they do, they typically overlap at the start and finish of each case.
More articles on integration and physician issues:
Texas Medical Center sees increase in burglaries in parking lot
What's causing the surge in 911 medical calls?
Summa, Mercy to form 'Ohio's largest CIN'