The Interventional Centre - 31 months experience with a department mergingsurgical and image-guided intervention

In order to meet the organisational and technical challenges invoked by the introduction of new technology in hospitals, The Interventional Centre was established at Rikshospitalet in 1996. The Centre is a research and develo pment department on image-guided and minimal invasive therapy, with the fol lowing aims: to develop new procedures, develop new treatment strategies, m ake comparative studies between existing and new strategies, and study the social, economical and organisational consequences of new techniques. The d epartment is cross-disciplinary and includes two completely merged operatio n theatres/radiology suites. In one room there is an open Signa 0.5 T magne t (General Electric Medical Systems, Milwaukee), the other room is a combin ed angiography and operation suite. From the opening on 1 st June 1996 unti l the end of 1998, 1052 patients and healthy test-persons were treated or e xamined at the centre; 85 animal procedures and 86 technical tests were per formed in the same period. The main advantages of the centre are: new proce dures may be developed outside the normal hospital routines; cross-discipli nary work is encouraged; advanced, expensive technical equipment with a com petent operating staff is made available to all the departments in the hosp ital.