Verizon Gift

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 26, 2003
Contact: Ellen Beth Levitt eblevitt@umm.edu 410-328-8919

VERIZON GIFT SUPPORTS NEW COMMUNICATIONA TECHNOLOGY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND MEDICAL CENTER'S "OPERATING ROOM OF THE FUTURE"

Paul Wood, Director of Public Affairs for Verizon of Maryland, presents a check to Medical Center CEO Dr. Stephen Schimpff while on a tour of the new operating room facility currently under construction.

The Verizon Foundation presented the University of Maryland Medical Center with a $50,000 grant today for new wireless communications equipment that will be part of the University of Maryland Medical Center's new "Operating Room of the Future," which is scheduled to open in April. The facility, located in the new 380,000 square foot Weinberg Building, will be nation's newest, most technologically advanced surgical facility.With the funding, the Medical Center will create a fully functioning wireless system in each of its new 18 operating rooms. Anesthesiologists, surgeons, and nurses will use it to access important patient data, including the results of laboratory and other tests, medication doses, and scheduling information, in real time. The staff will be able to take the wireless equipment with them from an operating room to another part of the surgical facility, such as the post anesthesia care unit, without losing data or having to log out.

"This is a very exciting collaboration, and we welcome Verizon as our partner as we work on ways to use technical innovations to improve patient safety and enable our staff to be more efficient," says Stephen C. Schimpff, M.D., CEO of the University of Maryland Medical Center.

"This wireless communications equipment will give our doctors and other OR staff immediate access to vital patient information at the bedside, without leaving the sterile field within the operating room, so there is no interruption or distraction from direct patient care," says Dr. Schimpff.

The University of Maryland Medical Center performs more than 15,800 surgeries each year.

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