About Us
About Us
VALUE
Evidence-Based Clinical Practices
Through treatment programs integrated and organized across multiple branches, continuity of patient care is ensured. This integrated program prevents repeated tests and ineffective treatments often requested at every visit to different doctors or health institutions, which are significant issues for spinal patients.
Evidence-based medicine ensures that the treatment decisions are made considering the experts' experience and the specific needs and expectations of each patient. The professionals involved in the treatment make collaborative rather than dictatorial decisions. By offering diagnostic and treatment methods developed and continuously updated through clinical pathways that consider experience and hospital culture, evidence-based medicine provides low-cost optimal results, facilitating access to successful treatments.
Personalized Treatment Programs
When viewed from the front, the spine is straight in an ideal standing posture, whereas from the side, it has various physiological curves like the neck and lower back indentations and the back hump. The amount and placement of these curves vary from person to person. To achieve a healthy posture, prevent spinal diseases, improve clinical outcomes of spinal surgeries, and prevent post-surgery mechanical complications, maintaining the normal limits of these sagittal curves and alignments is crucial. Calculations of the curves and alignments in these anatomical regions are used for measurement and planning in surgical treatments, in addition to physiotherapy and orthotic/prosthetic applications.
Experienced Specialist Team
The Spine Health team comprises six department doctors, 19 complementary doctors, three outpatient clinic nurses, five outpatient clinic staff members, two physiotherapists, two operating room nurses, one operating room technician, one academic research coordinator, one clinical fellow, and a group of 15 medical students. In the inpatient service, there is one head nurse, one team leader, and three ward nurses.
Department doctors include Spine Surgeons (from Orthopedics and Neurosurgery backgrounds), Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Algology, and Neurology specialists.
Complementary doctors provide services in Anesthesia, Intensive Care, Radiology, Thoracic Surgery, Vascular Surgery, Nephrology, Rheumatology, Pulmonology (Pediatric and Adult), Cardiology (Pediatric and Adult), Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, Psychiatry, Pediatric Psychiatry, Infectious Diseases, Endocrinology, Pediatric Surgery, and Genetics.
Outpatient clinic nurses handle Triage Nursing, Navigation Nursing, Case Management Nursing, and Patient Education Nursing. The outpatient clinic team includes Patient Advisors, Patient Admission experts, and administrative assistants. Experienced physiotherapists specializing in spine physiotherapy offer conservative interventions for patients of all ages and all types of spinal pathologies.
Academic activities are organized and conducted by the Research Coordinator, clinical fellow, research nurse, and medical students.
Operating room and inpatient service nurses are experienced team members in spinal patient care.
QUALITY
Patient Admission, Navigation and Follow-Up Systems
Based on brief questions asked to patients applying to our unit, our expert nurses determine which department they should see first. This process prevents unnecessary doctor visits, expenses, and time losses for our patients.
A patient whose treatment is initiated by a department doctor is included in the patient follow-up system, where experienced nurses monitor and evaluate the treatment process. Evaluations are conducted objectively through discussions with the patient and quality of life surveys. If it is observed that the applied treatment does not fully alleviate the complaints, the patient is referred to other relevant departments for different treatment methods. Once the patient is fully recovered, the patient follow-up system continues to monitor the treatment outcome through periodic quality of life surveys. The system compares survey results at different times, and if negative changes in quality of life are detected, the patient is contacted for a situation assessment and, if necessary, re-admitted for treatment.
Unit Architectural Structure
Representatives of all branches directly related to spinal diseases are located within the same unit, facilitating active and rapid communication and collaboration between different branches. Integration between various branches is simplified, and patient flow is streamlined. Instead of patients navigating different floors and locations to access various branches, all branches provide services in an integrated physical area. The unit includes areas for physical therapy and rehabilitation and corset production and application to ensure patients receive comprehensive treatment in one place.
Integrated Patient-Centered Care
Spine Health offers high-value service and high-quality patient care. Services are standardized, and the margin for error is reduced through clinical diagnosis and treatment pathways adapted to the hospital culture based on evidence-based medical methods. Our center focuses on treating the patient, not just interpreting radiography and MR images. Treatment outcomes are evaluated not only from the doctor's perspective but also using objective surveys documenting quality of life changes completed by patients.
Outcome Tracking and Benchmarking
All treatments and their results for our patients are recorded in specially designed systems for spinal diseases. These results are periodically evaluated and transparently discussed in the executive committee. Deficiencies are corrected, necessary precautions are taken, and improvements are made. The results are compared with those of other world-renowned centers registered in the "Spinal Centers Performance Evaluation System," guiding our efforts to improve in areas where development is possible and aiming for the best outcomes.
Collaboration with International Centers
Thanks to the global recognition of our unit, the successes of our faculty members, and personal connections, we collaborate with leading centers and spine doctors worldwide, both scientifically and in patient consultation. Through this network, complex spinal patients' conditions are shared with other centers, and opinions from many experts in the field are sought. This collaborative approach leverages the richness of all valuable perspectives to make informed decisions for complex cases.
SAFETY
Multidisciplinary Integrated Structure
Outpatient Clinic: All branches involved in the treatment of spinal diseases are brought together. The core team consists of spine surgeons (from Orthopedic and Neurosurgery backgrounds), a Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation specialist, physiotherapists, an Algologist, a Neurologist, and a Radiologist. In addition to these, the expanded team includes internal medicine, geriatrics, cardiology, anesthesia, psychiatry, cardiovascular surgery, thoracic surgery, and diet-nutrition specialists. Our expert team focuses on treating all types of spinal diseases primarily without surgery and, if necessary, with surgery. Treatment decisions for our patients are made jointly by bringing the entire team together for discussions. Decisions for challenging cases are made after common council meetings held at least twice a week.
Any negative events or complications experienced during the treatment process are transparently discussed in regular team meetings, and necessary precautions are taken, and improvements are made. In our physical therapy unit, scoliosis-specific exercises, Reformer Combo Pilates, TRX, BOSU, and swing yoga are implemented by our physiotherapists who are trained and certified in these areas. Physical therapy protocols are personalized.
Corset applications for scoliosis treatment are carried out under the supervision of our specially trained doctors by certified orthotists who have been trained at world-renowned corset centers. The type of corset is determined by our specialist doctors. Measurements and fittings of the corset, once prepared, are carried out in our unit's corset application area under the supervision of our specialist doctors.
Surgery
Intraoperative neuromonitoring, which ensures the safety of spinal surgeries, is performed by Neurology specialists who are specially trained and certified in this area. Intraoperative neuromonitoring is conducted using Medtronic NIM devices belonging to our center. Through neuromonitoring, nerve and spinal cord pressures are monitored during surgery, creating an early warning system and preventing spinal cord injuries. The multidisciplinary team approach, which includes multiple surgical branches, enhances the safety of the surgery.
Clinical Pathways
In our unit, standard practices, clinical pathways, and safety checklists are continuously improved and renewed. The collaborative and integrated work of many disciplines reduces medical errors. High safety and efficiency are aimed for quick recovery. In Spine Health, there are Clinical Pathways and guidelines developed separately for various patient groups and treatment methods. These include pathways for posterior fusion and vertebral body tethering (band stretching technique) for adolescent idiopathic scoliosis, a pathway for degenerative lumbar and lumbar disc for adult patients, and a geriatric pathway for older patients.
Clinical Pathways are evidence-based and standardized clinical practice sequences for homogeneous patient groups. The main objectives of creating Clinical Pathways are:
Safety Checklists
In addition to the related clinical guidelines and pathways, our center has a Safety Card application to enhance patient safety. This application, developed specifically for spinal surgeries and interventions, goes beyond the general checklist used in the hospital. The safety card remains with the patient from the preparation stage until discharge. Every procedure performed on the patient is marked in the relevant boxes by the respective nurses, doctors, and technicians, ensuring maximum care is taken during the hospital stay and preventing errors or omissions due to personal negligence.
The exclamation marks at the end of each relevant page serve as control points during the pre-operative preparation, anesthesia evaluation, ward admission process, entry and exit from the operating room, acceptance to the intensive care and recovery unit, re-admission to the ward, and discharge stages. The patient can only proceed to the next stage if all steps are completed, and signatures are obtained.
Within the same safety card, there are checklists for the presence of deep vein thrombosis complications, a drop in intraoperative neuromonitoring values, and the daily checklists applied during postoperative visits.
