Bayhealth Hospital, Kent Campus, became the first Delaware hospital to have a robotic guidance system for spine surgery with the purchase of an ExcelsiusGPS system.
Surgery with this system offers many potential benefits for patients, such as smaller incisions, less scarring, a shorter hospital stay, and faster recovery, a release stated.
“We are thrilled to be the first in our state with this advanced technology,” said Bayhealth Medical Director for Neurosurgery Dawn Tartaglione. She said that their three neurosurgeons have been fully trained on ExcelsiusGPS and have been using the robotic system to perform numerous minimally invasive spine surgeries. It can be used on a range of patients, including those with degenerative or arthritic spine conditions, and individuals who’ve suffered trauma to their spine.
ExcelsiusGPS is the world’s first technology to combine a rigid robotic arm and full navigation capabilities into one system for precise alignment in surgery. The system works in a similar way to a GPS in your car — the neurosurgeon plans the pathway to place screw implants into the spine and the ExcelsiusGPS aligns the surgeon along that pathway to complete the operation.
Because the hardware is placed in such delicate areas around nerves and the spinal cord where any deviation in placement could potentially cause problems, the level of accuracy that the robot provides gives the least risk and best outcomes to patients, the release noted.
“At Bayhealth we have an experienced team of neurosurgeons equipped with the most advanced tool available,” said Tartaglione. “Patients do not have to travel far now for state-of-the-art care that we can give them using this robotic system.”
Further information is available at Bayhealth.org/Spine-Robot.
