Outpatient Surgery Magazine

Special Outpatient Surgery Edition - Hot Technology - April 2017

Outpatient Surgery Magazine, providing current information on Surgical Services, Surgical Facility Administration, Outpatient Surgery News and Trends, OR Excellence and more.

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A P R I L 2 0 1 7 O U T P A T I E N TS U R G E R Y. N E T 2 9 • Growth potential. The robot has even lowered our hospital's admission rates, as we've been able to convert a lot of formerly inpatient surgeries to out- patient. And from a clinical standpoint, it's improved recovery times and patient satisfaction. We've even been able to get the cost down to where there's a negli- gible difference between robotic surgery and conventional lap surgery. We've also seen an improvement in our referral patterns. Satisfied patients are spread- ing the word, and we've grown from about 30 hernia cases per quarter to about 150 per quarter. Future applications We're just scratching the surface in regard to what the robot can do. Surgeons are now performing robotic Whipples (pancreaticoduodenectomies) and liver resections. The question we need to be asking ourselves is what other abdomi- nal procedures can be done robotically, now that more surgeons are using the technology. Like many younger surgeons, I see the robot as the future of laparoscopic surgery. It's true that as long as a single company has a monopoly — there are a couple new platforms that could come online in the near future — it will be tough to get costs down to where we'd like. But instead of spending so much time arguing that robots aren't viable, surgical leaders should be looking both at how to reduce costs and at doing more rigorous studies that show where the biggest benefits are going to be. The reality is that surgeons are using the robot and the technology is advancing. In a few years, as robots gain more acceptance, all the questions about the technology's cost and via- bility will be moot. OSM Dr. Heffner (jjheffner@limamemorial.org) is a board-certified general surgeon at Midwest Surgical Specialists in Lima, Ohio.

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