Kootenai Health Launches Robotic Surgery Programs

By Proffitt, Emily

Kootenai Health, of Coeur d’Alene, says it has bought a $1.6 million robot and has started offering robotic surgeries for urology and gynecology patients at Kootenai Medical Center, which it open ates.

Also, Kootenai Health has bought a roughly $1 million robot, called Robot-Rx, that it’s installing in KMC’s pharmacy, says Kootenai Health CEO Joe Morris. KMC plans to use Robot-Rx, which is manufactured by San Francisco-based McKesson Corp., to dispense medication for its inpatients, he says.

Kootenai Health bought the surgical robot this spring. It’s called the da Vinci Surgical System and is manufactured by Sunnyvale, Calif. – based Intuitive Surgical Inc., Morris says.

Robotic-assisted surgery is a form of laparoscopic surgery, which is minimally invasive surgery done by inserting surgical implements into the body through small holes in the skin.

The da Vinci machine enables a surgeon to operate on a patient by using small remote-controlled robotic arms, with tiny human-like wrists and hand-like devices. The surgeon guides the devices, along with a tiny video camera, into the patient’s body through small incisions in the skin and manipulates them when they’re inside the body to perform the surgery.

So far, doctors at KMC have used the device in 17 operations, including prostate surgeries, kidney surgeries, and hysterectomies, Morris says. Another possible application for the system is heart surgery, he says. Currently, Kootenai Health sends patients who are eligible for and want robotic heart surgery to Sacred Heart Medical Center, in Spokane, which has been offering robotic heart procedures since 2003. If Kootenai Health decides to offer robotic heart surgeries in the future, it would bring surgeons over from Spokane to perform them, he says.

“That would be down the road after we get our feet off the ground,” Morris says.

Kootenai Health decided to start offering robotic surgery partly because it has become the standard of care for certain types of surgeries, such as those for removal of a cancer-ridden prostate gland, he says.

Also, the technology is maturing and more types of robotic surgery are expect-ed to become available in the future, he says.

“We looked at buying (the da Vinci robot) five years ago, but we didn’t think it was ready for prime time,” Morris says. “Now, the use of robotics is increasing dramatically, and we want people in North Idaho to have access to the latest standard of care.”

Also, obstetrics, gynecology, and urology represent major service lines for Kootenai Health, and the hospital wanted to provide a broad array of equipment so its doctors could practice their specialties more fully, he says.

In addition, the robot has become a necessary piece of equipment for hospitals in recruiting new doctors in certain specialties, such as urology, he says. As a shortage of physicians in a variety of specialties looms on the horizon in the next 10 to 15 years, one of the important ways hospitals will be able to attract and retain physicians will be to allow them to practice at the level of medicine they do in their residencies, which increasingly includes robotic procedures, he says.

In terms of patient care, the main advantage of robotic surgery compared with conventional surgery is that it involves smaller incisions, which decreases blood loss and results in patients going home sooner and recovering faster, Morris says. The new robot also allows Kootenai Health patients who want robotic surgery to have it done in Coeur d’Alene, rather than having to travel to Spokane or Seattle for such procedures, he says.

Separately, Kootenai Health plans to start using next month the machine it. bought for KMC’s pharmacy department, Morris says. On a daily basis, Robot-Rx will select all of a patient’s medications, package each patient’s medications in individual packets, and then place those packets in a bag for that patient, he says. KMC added about 4,000 square feet of space to its 12,000-square-foot pharmacy to accommodate the machine.

Kootenai Health decided to automate the medication-dispensing process so that pharmacists could have more time to discuss patients’ medications with physicians, he says.

“They will still oversee the process, but it saves a lot of time,” Morris says. “This will allow them to be clinical pharmacists instead of just dispensing drugs.”

Copyright Northwest Business Press Inc. Aug 28, 2008

(c) 2008 Journal of Business; Spokane. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.