Surgeons at North Florida Regional Medical Center can now perform surgeries using a highly precise robotic arm.
Released to the public last week, the Robotic Arm Interactive Orthopedic System, known as RIO, is the first of its kind in Alachua County. The hospital purchased the machine in December to perform knee and hip replacement surgeries that facilitate fast recovery and ensure longer-lasting implants than traditional surgery methods.
Compared to other joint surgeries, patients are expected to recover two to three times faster and enjoy a “much more natural-feeling replacement” because the process preserves patients’ natural ligaments, said Rob Greene, a territory sales manager for MAKO Surgical Corp., the company that created RIO.
The joint-replacement procedures will also allow surgeons to remove bone mass more precisely in patients with osteoarthritis, reducing pain and maintaining as much of the natural bone as possible.
“The robot guarantees that the physician gets the implant in every time,” Greene said. “If you get the implant aligned correctly, then that’s going to be a much greater outcome and longevity for the implant.”
Conventional surgery for partial knee replacement requires surgeons to work freehand while removing bone mass, meaning more bone is removed than necessary, Greene said. The RIO takes a 3-D image from a computer-processed X-ray scan and confines the surgeon’s tool to the boundaries of the operating area.
The device will also expand the pool of candidates who can have surgeries, said Kenneth “Chip” Overstreet, assistant vice president of orthopedic services at the hospital.
“It opens the door to younger patients,” he said. “If they catch you soon enough, you’re going to avoid a much greater surgery.”
Overstreet expects surgeries to begin in the next few weeks.
[A version of this story ran on page 8 on 1/24/2014 under the headline "Robotic arm lends helping hand to county hospital patients"]
