Southwestern Vermont Medical Center’s newest surgical assistant comes with four arms and the latest in robotic surgery technology. Hospital leaders are hoping the tool can help make the rural health center a regional draw.
A da Vinci 5 robot sits in the middle of an operating room in the Bennington Hospital: three terminals beep and buzz like a scene out of your preferred science fiction series.
It whirs to life as Doctor Seth Bernard sits down at the control console just steps away – he’s carefully suturing the opening of a tissue box.
“So, I’m able to do all of this because I have wrist movement. So, traditional laparoscopy, you really only have rotation as such and you have the ability to open and close and instrument. Robotics gives you wrists. So, I can really take a suture needle and I can move it all around in time and space and really manipulate tissues in a much easier manner and do more complex repair,” said Bernard.
Bernard’s voice is amplified through the room so he doesn’t have to pick his head up to communicate with his staff mid-operation.
He’s controlling two of the machine’s four arms with each hand while also manipulating a third arm that’s holding a camera.
He’s also taken off his boots so he can better feel the array of pedals on the floor, allowing him to switch which arm he’s controlling.
“I’m shooting from the cuff here, I’d say it takes about 150 operations to get comfortable with the robot specifically. This pairs—the pathology is the same as open surgery or laparoscopic surgery. So, the principles are all the same but the ability and the skills to do a surgical repair are just a bit different and in some ways they’re easier robotically absolutely,” said Bernard.
The da Vinci 5 robotic surgery device is the only machine of its kind in Vermont.
SVMC President Thomas Dee was on hand for the demonstration.
He said nearly 6,000 local residents leave the region each year for care, so he’s hopeful this new technology will be a draw for patients both local and from afar.
“Yeah, well, I think that the transformation goal is really one is for hospitals to share resources, create things in a regional approach. I think this is perfect for that, and also it meets the need for the state to keep people in Vermont. I mean our outcomes here are terrific, and we're one of the lower cost providers. So, the more we can keep people close to home, it saves Vermonters money and it's what they want to have, is that their care being local,” said Dee.
Dee adds acquiring new technology could safeguard the rural hospital from impending cuts to Medicaid.
“You know, rural health care is always challenged because, you know, you don't have a lot of scale, and this, this, again, this will attract patients from far and wide. But even more important, it allows us to recruit providers that, as Dr Bernard said, they've been, they've gone through their training to have this, and they're not going to want to come to a hospital that they're stepping backwards in time. So, this is something that I think it checks the boxes in many areas in terms of outcomes, technology and workforce development and workforce recruitment,” said Dee.
The machine retails for around $2 million, but through SVMC’s partnership with Dartmouth Health system, a collective of nine community hospitals and clinics, the hospital is paying for it on a per-use basis.
