Florida Hospital Flagler announced today that it has implemented a $0.5 million upgrade to the gastrointestinal care available to the Flagler County community.

As part of this upgrade, Florida Hospital Flagler’s three employed Gastroenterologists Wallace Combs, MD; Joseph McKinley, MD; and Safwan Shams, MD, can now offer patients the Given Imaging PillCam®, a video capsule the size of a vitamin.

“Some portions of the small intestines cannot be seen by video endoscopic equipment,” said Terry Huckle, Florida Hospital Flagler Surgical Services Director.

Gastrointestinal Video Endoscopes are flexible, delicate diagnostic instruments with a camera that transmits a video signal to a high-definition monitor. They are primarily used to examine and treat Gastrointestinal disease of the upper and lower GI tract.

“For patients who have had a traditional endoscopic exam and the cause of their symptoms has not been clearly identified, they now have the PillCam,” said Huckle. “The PillCam can help detect intestinal tumors, malabsorption disorders and gastrointestinal injuries that are not always seen on traditional endoscopy exams.”

Patients swallow the PillCam and it takes photos as it travels through the intestines, taking two photos every second, generating more than 50,000 images over an 8-hour period. It wirelessly transmits these photos to a recording device worn on the patient’s hip. After the disposable PillCam passes through the patient’s system, the images are downloaded and reviewed by the physician.

Dr. Combs recently performed a PillCam procedure.

“In this patient’s case, I found a bleeding lesion in part of the small bowel that I was able to see through a traditional upper endoscopy,” said Dr. Combs. “I used the PillCam today to see if there were anymore lesions in the patient’s small bowel that could not be seen on the upper. If it turns out that she does have more lesions, I’ll be able to treat all of them, instead of just the one I saw with the upper.”

In addition, this upgrade includes 13 new video endoscopes, which are lighted optical instruments used to examine organs inside the body and will be used to diagnose and treat disorders of the gastrointestinal, or digestive, tract.

The hospital has also implemented the Olympus EndoWorks® System, a web-based information management solution that spans all stages of patient care to increase productivity while reducing costs for healthcare facilities. With browser-based access, Florida Hospital Flagler’s Gastroenterologists can log into EndoWork’s for instant access to comprehensive patient medical information and report data. This new electronic program eliminates redundant data entry, increases data integrity, as well as provides more efficient clinical workflow and electronic record management.

“Here in Palm Coast, we can now perform a complete gastrointestinal evaluation, from top to bottom and everything in between,” said Dr. Combs.