SOUTH COUNTY HOSPITAL
The Robot in the OR
At South County Hospital (SCH), the helping hand the surgeon turns to in the
operating room (OR) is often metal. It belongs to Mako, an advanced robotic-arm
assisted technology from Stryker that the hospital began using several years ago to
improve joint replacement procedures.
Mako helps surgeons provide a more precise, breakthrough for hip replacement and partial
accurate and personalized experience for knee replacement. The technology was recently
patients undergoing total hip, total knee, and adapted and approved for robotic-assisted
partial knee joint replacement surgery. It total knee replacement, and in June of 2016,
combines both sophisticated hardware (the SCH became one of the seven sites selected
actual robotic arm) and an advanced software to do a study of robotic-assisted technology
application that programs the robotics for in total knee replacement. The study evalu-
each type of surgery. A pre-op CT scan of the ated different ways of performing the surgery,
patient’s hip or knee, efficiencies from a flow /
along with information mechanical / OR set-up /
from arrays that are
placed on the patient
in the operating room,
create a 3-D image of
the joint that can be
examined from every
angle on a monitor to
assist the surgeon in
performing the joint
replacement surgery.
In 2010, when Dr.
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CURRENT FALL 2017
During the fall of 2016,
Dr. Marchand officially
launched the world’s
first commercial release
of the robotic full knee
replacement procedure
and started surgeries on
patients outside of the
study.
patient positioning
perspective, and more.
As part of this pr ocess,
Dr. Marchand completed
clinical trials of 35 Mako
robotic-assisted total
knee replacements. The
procedures were recorded
start to finish as study
creators attempted to
develop a learning curve,
Robert Marchand and including how long the
his colleagues at South procedures took to
County Orthopedics (now Orthopedics RI – complete, the timing of every step, etc., in order
South County)/SCH began using Mako to develop a pattern for the most efficient way
robotic-assisted technology, it was a to perform the procedures. Once the study was
Stronger Together
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