Unused surgical robot sits in Texas hospital
Patient Safety Monitor Alert
April 1, 2009
Although using the da Vinci robot can lower infection rates after surgery and require less blood transfusions, one of these $1.75 million machines sits in the JPS Diagnostic & Surgery Hospital of Arlington, Texas, virtually unused. The Star-Telegram is reporting that one surgeon who performed 90% of the surgeries using the da Vinci robot left JPS recently, and not enough trained surgical staff members are left to perform surgeries using the robot. The da Vinci robot makes an incision the width of a pen, lowering the likelihood of postsurgical infection.
