Expanding robotic surgery access for patients may directly impact clinical quality and total cost of care.
During a March 5 webinar hosted by Becker's Hospital Review and sponsored by Intuitive, an industry expert discussed programmatic integration and alignment to expand robotic surgery access for patients.
The speaker was:
- Sandeep Vijan, MD, general surgeon, CMO and chief quality officer at Pueblo, Colo.-based Parkview Medical Center
Here are three key takeaways from the presentation:
1. The aim of all clinical quality leaders is simple: safe, timely, effective, efficient and equitable care, Dr. Vijan began. What some leaders aren't aware of is how da Vinci robotic surgery fits into that definition. Robotic-assisted surgery is minimally invasive and has the potential to fit seamlessly into patient-centered care strategies. Improved patient outcomes can also lead to a lower total cost of care. For all these reasons, robotics can also improve the provider experience, Dr. Vijan said.
2. Expanded access can mean a variety of different things for different institutions, such as growing volume by attracting surgeons looking for more robotic access or improving efficiency so more cases can be performed each day. For Parkview Medical, a hospital with 300 acute care beds, adding robotics and expanding access allowed elective cases to be scheduled past 3 p.m. and also on the weekends, and improved acute care surgery service patient outcomes/experience. Hospitals experiencing backlogs due to COVID-19 shutdowns could also benefit from expanding access, Dr. Vijan noted.
3. For robotics to be as successful as possible, health systems have to break down several barriers. There is a lack of awareness surrounding the clinical value of robotics among clinicians, leaders and patients, Dr. Vijan said. It can help to offer education, as well as sharing outcome data and patient testimonials with staff. Dr. Vijan discussed biases some anesthesia team members at Parkview Medical held against robotics, and said he connected with them as peers and invited them to steering/planning committees. He valued their input and was able to connect with them. The team now sees the benefits of robotics and enjoys working with it.
To watch the webinar, click here. Learn more at our Robotics Content Hub.