Hybrid operating room requirements are usually based around imaging, like CT, MR, C-arm or other types of imaging, being brought into surgery. Bringing imaging into or adjacent to the surgical space means that the patient doesn’t have to be moved during surgery, reducing risk and inconvenience. Depending on the design of operating rooms in hospitals as well as their resources and needs, fixed or mobile hybrid operating rooms may be built. One-room fixed O.R.s offer maximum integration with a high-end MR scanner, allowing the patient to stay in the room, still anesthetized, during the scan. In two or three room configurations, the patient must be transported to an adjacent room for scanning, increasing the risk of inaccuracy through possible movement of the reference system. In O.R.s with mobile systems, the patient remains and the imaging system is brought to them. Mobile configurations offer different advantages, such as the flexibility to use imaging in multiple operating rooms, as well as generally lower costs, but may not provide the higher image quality a fixed imaging system could offer.

One further understanding of hybrid O.R.s is that they are multi-purpose rooms that are fitted to serve different surgical disciplines. With more and more complex procedures taking place, intraoperative imaging is certainly the future of surgery. Hybrid O.R.s generally focus on minimally invasive and vascular surgery. They are often shared by different surgical departments, such as vascular and spine.

Hybrid operating room benefits include scans of the affected part of the body being forwarded and available for review and use immediately in the operating room. This allows the surgeon to continue operating, for example, in a high risk area like the brain with the most up-to-date data.