dbeard@dominionpost.com
MORGANTOWN – In a science fiction movie, a tall, white headless robot with four multi-jointed arms tipped with spears would go rolling after your, likely spelling your doom.
For WVU Medicine, the robot and all its companion equipment is the future of surgery, allowing for more precise, minimally invasive surgery with tinier incisions and far less pain for the patient.
The new daVinci 5 robotic surgery system was on display at the back of the room Friday at WVUM’s system-wide Robotics Summit, held at the Morgantown Marriott at Waterfront Place.
WVUM doesn’t have one yet, said Robotics Director Kristy Ward, but it has an ever-growing robotics program and the DV 5 – with 150 technological advances over the current da Vince Xi multi-port – is coming.
One of the most significant advances, said Jason Fromer, area vice president for the Eastern U.S., is
force-feedback pressure sensitive technology in the hand controls at the console. With the previous robots, surgeons have had to learn to interpret how much pressure they’re putting on the patient’s tissue and organs by using their eyes,
Force-feedback pressure, he said, is the result of Intuitive’s (the maker of the da Vincis) longest-running engineering project. It gauges the pressure the tools are exerting and transfers that back to the hand controls so the physician can feel it. The pressure sensitivity is adjustable, for physicians of various experience levels, and allows for less force to be exerted on the tissue.
Ward and other speakers described the many benefits of robotic-assisted surgery.
It requires smaller incisions. Time in the hospital is reduced, and patients can get home and back to work faster.
Ward said for an open hysterectomy (the traditional surgery with hand-held scalpels and large incisions), the patient would have a three- to five-day stay and four to six weeks off work. For a robotic-assisted hysterectomy, the patient is in for a day and usually back to work in a week.
“The difference between open surgery and minimally invasive surgery is a big deal for these patients,” she said. “Patients live the minimally invasive surgery.”
Robotic surgery reduces costs for the patient and the hospital, speakers said. Lower costs means higher revenue margins for the hospitals, that can be re-invested to regularly improve care. Across the system, they can save $10 million by converting all open surgeries and most laparoscopic surgeries to robotic procedures.
Robotic surgeries reduce surgery times, which allows for more per day – increasing service to patients and increasing hospital revenue.
Ergonomic surgical consoles can extend the work life of surgeons – by producing on their backs, necks and shoulders. And a solid program will help and recruit more high quality surgeons to West Virginia.
Speakers described the evolution of robotic surgery nationally and at WVUM.
Nationally, since 2012 laparoscopic surgeries have dropped from 56% of all surgeries to 43%. Open surgeries have dropped from 34% to 18%.
And da Vinci robotic surgeries have climbed from 10% to 39%. It’s expected robotic surgeries will overtake laparoscopic surgeries by 2025 or 2026.
WVUM, meanwhile is beating the national average. From 2019-2023, laparoscopic surgies have dropped from 50% to 28%; open surgeries from 30% to 13%; while robotic surgeries have climbed from 20% to 60%.
In 2018, WVUM had three da Vincis – two of them at Ruby Memorial. Now, WVUM has 28 robots, both da Vinci Xi multi-ports and da Vinci SP single ports – with eight at Ruby and plans to acquire two more.
In 2018, WVU has 47 surgeons trained in robotics, now the system has 119, and Ruby has three more coming aboard in January. In 2023, when they had just 18 robots, they performed 4,594 surgeries, and will top that number this year. Since 2011, they’ve performed more than 28,000 robotic surgeries.
Dr. Meghan Turner, an ENT surgeon, told the audience that a traditional tonsil cancer procedure would involve split the lower jaw and lip and pulling out the tongue to get to the diseased area. With a da Vinci SP, she can just go into the mouth with the single port that has a 3D HD camera and multi-jointed instruments, and go right to the tumor.
A new system-wide robotics committee had its first meeting in September, Ward said, and the summit provided the opportunity for the first in-person meeting. The various hospitals already have robotics committees and they will use their experiences to make recommendations to the system-wide committee, which will act as a resource to spread knowledge across the system and help standardize operations and care.
WVUM has the largest robotics program in the state. Nick Barcellona, WVUM chief financial officer, talked about how that can help the state’s notoriously poor health status.
“While there are some challenges for us, we are leading the pack,” he said. “And we have the ability to change the way we’re delivering care, change the outcomes here. And instead of being somewhere between 45th and 50th in all these different healthcare outcomes – we’re not going to be number one overnight, but this is the way we get there, the work you’re all doing here.”
Ward said, “The big picture is that everyone in West Virginia can get the robotic surgery they need and stay close to home.”
