Click here to enlarge imageFirst accredited in 1997, the surgery facility is seeking its fourth, three-year period of accreditation.
At the Suffolk Ambulatory Surgery Facility, general anesthesia services and intravenous sedation are administered by Office Based Anesthesia, a Long Island based group of board certified anesthesiologists.
The fully equipped surgery suite includes a recovery room staffed by post-anesthesia care unit/intensive care certified registered nurses, as well as a generator. The suite’s nitrous oxide system has automatic alarm, automatic backup, and automatic switchover (classified for a Type I facility like a hospital) and carries a hefty $50,000 price tag.
Besides the Kodak equipment noted earlier, the operating suite includes 3D cone beam tomography (i-CAT), a CO2 laser (Luxarcare), a mucosal examining system (VELscope), PiezoSurgery®, a DVT prophylaxis system (Flowtron), a total temperature management system (Bair Hugger), a fiberoptic intubation instrumentation (Glidescope), and a radio frequency test for implant integration (Osstell).
“Patients are becoming educated about what’s available in terms of treatment options,” Dr. Pierri said. “From our standpoint, as an accredited facility, we provide the highest possible standard of care.”
The practice just became a Master site for Materialise Simplant users, called “Voxel Imaging,” and now provides cone beam scans featuring interactive 3D software for the production of dental implant SurgiGuides to increase the accuracy of dental implant placement.
After initially learning about the dental implants field, Dr. Pierri - who has gained more than 3,000 hours in continuing education in her career - knew it was a calling she must follow.
“I fell in love at first sight with implants,” the oral surgeon said. “I thought ‘Wow. This is something.’ I knew it would be great. I guess you could call it woman’s intuition. I really believed in it as an alternative treatment for patient care.”
Dr. Lynn Pierri’s adventure with computers in her life can be characterized in much the same way, once she realized the impact modern technology could have on her oral surgery and dental implant practice. For her, it’s no longer a matter of “love ’em or leave ’em.”