The Power of Legacy Gifts

Royal Columbian Hospital Foundation is grateful to receive gifts from individuals who chose to include RCHF in their wills. These very special donors left a powerful legacy at our hospital by funding urgently needed equipment, technology and research. Their generosity lives on by benefitting our current and future patients. These are just a few examples.

Belmont Rapid Infuser for our Cardiac Intensive Care Unit

Our Cardiac Surgery Intensive Care Unit (CSICU) cares for post openheart surgery patients requiring the full spectrum of critical care interventions. These include intraaortic balloon pumps to help the heart pump more blood and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), where a machine is used to “bypass” precise diagnosis and treatment the heart and lungs when they are failing. Many CSICU patients are also hemodynamically unstable, meaning they don’t have enough pressure in their circulatory system to keep blood flowing reliably through the body.

Often in these life-threatening emergencies, the patient needs more blood, and fast. The Belmont Rapid Infuser quickly administers warmed blood products to patients. Until recently, the CSICU had to borrow one from the Intensive Care Unit.

RCH is Fraser Health’s only site for open-heart surgery, with more than 1,000 procedures a year – more than any other hospital in BC. The Belmont Rapid Infuser will help to ensure that in their most critical moments, our recovering open heart surgery patients will have the best possible outcomes.

CX50 Ultrasound System for our Cardiac

Catheterization Lab

Royal Columbian is home to the busiest cardiac intervention unit in BC, performing more angioplasties than any other cardiac catheterization lab in the province. It is among the busiest in Canada, providing advanced minimally invasive diagnostic and interventional management of coronary and structural heart disease. Many cardiovascular interventional procedures require large bore catheter access into the vascular system, including Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation to replace a failing heart valve and Transcatheter Mitral Valve Repair to stop blood leaking backwards in the heart.

For these procedures, imaging is everything. The CX50 Ultrasound System offers exceptional images so our physicians can quickly and precisely perform these complex interventions. It is also portable and can be used anywhere in the hospital. As we expand our interventional cardiology program in the new Jim Pattison Acute Care Tower, this piece of equipment will be essential for optimal cardiovascular interventional procedures.

CVI42 Software for Cardiac MRI

Cardiac MRI is used to diagnose and manage a variety of cardiac diseases, including ischemic heart disease, cardiomyopathy, myocarditis, and cardiac tumours. Post processing image analysis is required to obtain a number of measurements which are critical for determining cardiac function, establishing disease diagnosis, and guiding patient management.

CVI42 software for cardiac MRI is an industry leader, enabling faster and more accurate cardiac MRI image processing. This state-of-the-art software will give our radiologists the best tools available to inform diagnosis and treatment.

Epiq 7 Pediatric Transesophageal Ultrasound Probe for Cardiology (TEE)

RCH is British Columbia’s busiest cardiac care centre. Our physicians rely on sharp, quality images of the heart for diagnosis and treatment. A transesophageal echocardiogram (TEE) uses echocardiography to assess the structure and function of the heart. During the procedure, a transducer (like a microphone) sends out ultrasonic sound waves. These sound waves move through the skin and other body tissues to the heart tissues, where the waves bounce, or "echo", off of the heart structures. The transducer picks up the reflected waves and sends them to a computer. The computer displays the echoes as images of the heart walls and valves. A traditional echocardiogram is done by putting the transducer on the surface of the chest. A transesophageal echocardiogram is done by inserting a probe with a transducer down the esophagus. This provides a clearer image of the heart because the sound waves do not have to pass through skin, muscle, or bone tissue. Also, the TEE probe can get closer to the heart since the esophagus and heart are right next to each other. A pediatric transesophageal probe is more comfortable for our smaller patients. TEE is also used during ablation procedures to correct atrial fibrillation, an irregular and often rapid heart rate that occurs when the two upper chambers of the heart (atria) experience chaotic electrical signals. During ablation to correct atrial fibrillation, doctors thread long, thin tubes (catheters) into the heart and apply heat or extreme cold. This causes tiny scars in certain parts of the heart muscle, which disrupt or eliminate the erratic electrical signals in the heart. Physicians use transesophageal echocardiography to see where exactly to make the needle puncture for the catheter, to guide the catheter, and to visualize areas for ablation. ■