Renown Regional Medical Center invested $1.5 million in a new robotics-assisted surgery system because it's expected to reduce trauma and recovery time for some surgical patients.
But Renown Health executives also expect the system they purchased from Intuitive Surgical Inc. of Sunnyvale, Calif., also will help them recruit surgeons in some specialities.
Intuitive says it's installed its daVinci Robotic Surgical Systems in about 700 hospitals nationwide, and Renown spokesman Don Butterfield says availability of the equipment is a key question for many surgeons looking to relocate to Reno.
The daVinci system allows surgeons to work at a computer screen at which three-dimension images of the patient are displayed. The robotic technology mimics the surgeon's wrist and hand movements during the surgery while a nurse and assistant stand by the side of the patient.
The upshot: Less physical stress on the surgeon and less trauma and blood loss for the patients. That, in
turn, will get some surgical patients home more quickly, hospital executives say.
A variety of minimally invasive surgeries that can't be performed using traditional techniques can be undertaken with the robotic system.
Renown is picking up some of the cost of training on daVinci for surgeons who already are working at the hospital.
"Some surgeons are on board," says Butterfield. "Some aren't."
The daVinci system allows surgeons to work easily within incisions that are only 1 or 2 centimeters tight spaces that demand precise work.
Among the applications for which the robotics system are used are treatment of prostate cancer and hysterectomies.
