On Friday, the first surgery was successfully performed using the Da Vinci robotic platform at the Riojano Health Care Service. The intervention, which was conducted by the Urological Service, a Radical prostatectomy of a 73-year-old patient with prostate cancer.
The team that took part in the intervention consisted of Dr. Daniel Pascual and Dr. Silvia Alvarez, urologists; Naya Aguirre and Sandra Escudero, Department of Anesthesiology and Resuscitation; Marina Gromova, scrub nurse; Oria Rodríguez, Sonia Jiménez, and Teresa Sebastián from the nursing, as well as all TCAE staff, orderlies, and cleaners in the surgical unit who collaborated with patient preparation and transportation.
For Rioja Health Service, having a robotic platform for these properties and certified professionals to use them is a huge quantum leap in commitment to safety and quality for patients and innovation in the public system. In addition, through this investment, conditions are enhanced so that SERIS surgeons have the same tools as those in other communities and conditions for attracting and retaining talent from surgical specialties are improved.
In the coming weeks, new procedures will be dealt with with the help of the robotic platform in other specialties: general surgery, gynecology, otolaryngology.
robotic platform
After the tender for the robotic platform was published a year ago, in August 2022, the contract was awarded to Abex to install the Da Vinci robotics platform at San Pedro University Hospital with an investment of €990,000 (excluding VAT). financed with European money.
By implementing this platform, various benefits will be achieved, both for the procedure and for the specialists, as well as for the patients.
Surgery improvements:
- It guarantees maximum accuracy, due to its high image quality and visibility of reference points and anatomical planes.
- Allows for greater precision in the surgeon’s movements. The robot performs actions ordered by the doctor, eliminating errors such as tremors that are inherently human in the hand. It has a system of movements on a large scale. Allows for greater accuracy of reconstruction.
- It gives the surgeon more freedom of movement compared to traditional laparoscopic surgery.
- Easy access to complex anatomy with minimal incisions with better aesthetic results and less pain.
- Intraoperative postural changes required according to the complexity of the indication, minimizing the time spent on it, and maintaining maximum patient safety.
- Easy access to activity reports, images or videos from the system to review surgical technique, improve times and optimize material consumables to increase efficiency.
Benefits for the patient.
- It reduces the suffering of patients. The incisions made are between 5 and 10 mm in diameter, which is enough space to allow the robot tools to enter. In addition to better aesthetic results.
- Fewer complications during surgery.
- Less blood loss. Reduce blood transfusions.
- Reduces the length of hospital stay for patients, and favors recovery after surgery. Patients can return to their activities quickly, having regained their normal physiological functions in less time than with traditional laparoscopic surgery.
- Fewer complications after surgery. Fewer readmissions in the next 30 days.
- Fewer interventions.
- Lower mortality rate.