Kansas City, MO, (May 8, 2018) – St. Joseph Medical Center recently invested in the NAVIO Surgical System, a cutting-edge platform that provides robotic assistance in knee replacement surgery. St. Joseph Medical Center is the first and only facility in Kansas City to have the half a million-dollar NAVIO Surgical System. Robotic assistance enables surgeons with accuracy and precision – important factors in determining the long-term success of the surgery. “We invested in this technology because we want our patients to have access to the very best healthcare available today,” said Dr. Scott Abraham, Orthopedic Surgeon at St. Joseph Medical Center. “Robotic assistance will only further enhance our ability to achieve great patient outcomes.”Jackie Wolf, one of Dr. Abraham’s first Navio partial knee replacement patients, said “I was walking the very next day and a few days later without any assistance. It’s truly amazing how fast I recovered.” She also added, “My physical therapist couldn’t believe my range of motion only five days after my surgery. I would highly encourage Navio robotic assisted knee replacement surgery to everyone.” Dr. Abraham added, “It’s wonderful to see how robotics and I can work together to improve patient outcomes such as it did in Jackie’s case.”
At St. Joseph Medical Center, Dr. Abraham is particularly focused on using the NAVIO system to help perform outpatient partial and total knee replacements. Outpatient surgery is a growing trend in orthopedics that allows patients to go home in less than 24 hours. Other benefits include lower risk of infection and lower costs.
With the NAVIO system, patients are not required to undergo a radiation intensive CT-scan prior to surgery, common with other robotics-assisted surgical platforms. Instead, the surgeon collects each patient’s unique bone structure during the procedure using an advanced surgical probe. This information is used to generate a 3D model of the patient’s knee, which is used to plan the surgery. To perform the procedure, a robotics-assisted surgical tool is used to remove just enough space to make room for the implant, which is replacing the damaged bone in the knee. The NAVIO system does this within millimeters of the surgeon’s intent. This extra layer of precision is designed to enable optimal implant placement for better patient outcomes.
Dr. Abraham added, “The introduction of robotic assistance should have knee replacement candidates feeling very confident about the future of knee surgery. Having this technology available right here in our center is a tremendous asset and should benefit our community for many years to come.”
St. Joseph Medical Center and Dr. Abraham are hosting a patient seminar on Thursday, May 17 at noon or 6pm at St. Joseph’s Community Center to introduce the State’s first NAVIO robotics-assisted surgery. program. To register for the event, or to learn more about who may benefit from a robotics-assisted knee replacement procedure, please call Ericka Beeler at 816-943-2687.