North Florida Regional Medical Center has upgraded its technology for knee and hip surgery with a state of the art robotic system.
Patients, visitors and staff learned about the new system Thursday (Jan. 16) as the hospital displayed the new equipment near the hospital lobby.
With the system, a monitor displays a CT scan. The monitor shows in bright green the safe area for a surgeon to use a reamer – a metal shaft that appears much like a drill bit – to remove diseased bone. The display also guides the surgeon in precisely placing implants in the hip or knee.
Robert Greene, a sales manager with Mako Surgical Corp., compares the equipment to automobile balancing and alignment equipment. “If you buy new tires but don’t balance the tires and get an alignment, the tires aren’t going to last as long,” he said.
Only .4 percent of knee surgeries using the system failed after two years, which is nine times lower than the failure rate with surgery without a robotic system, research showed.
Patients heal faster, have less pain and are more mobile than patients who undergo hip and knee surgery without the robotic system, studies found.
With the robotic system, North Florida will be able to conduct knee resurfacing, installing implants of cobalt, chromium and titanium without replacing entire knew joints.
Surgeons from the Orthopaedic Institute conducted 750 knee and hip surgeries at North Florida last year, said Kenneth Overstreet, the hospital’s assistant vice president of orthopedic services. “We’re excited about adding another tool that helps our patients,” he said.