The evolution and development of a robotic acute care surgery program

Abstract

BACKGROUND Acute care surgeons perform more than 850,000 operations annually on emergency general surgery patients in the United States. Emergency general surgery conditions are associated with a disproportionate excess of patient complications and death. Innovative quality improvement strategies have focused on addressing the excess morbidity and mortality among this patient population. Minimally invasive surgical techniques have been shown to reduce the burden experienced by emergency general surgery patients. Still, limited adoption by acute care surgeons has restricted this application’s potential. An institutional robotics acute care surgery program provides acute care surgeons additional opportunities to expand minimally invasive surgery access to emergency general surgery patients irrespective of the time or day of the week. METHODS A robotics acute care surgery program was developed and implemented at a high-volume academic institution within the division of trauma and acute care surgery. RESULTS Three attending surgeons and two fellows within the trauma and acute care surgery division had successfully completed a defined robotics clinical pathway. As a result, around-the-clock use of a robotic surgical platform for emergency general surgery cases was implemented with routine use by trained robotic acute care surgeons and practicing fellows. CONCLUSION The advancement of robotic surgical technology has opened new avenues for surgical application in the emergency setting. The development of a robotic acute care surgery program allows acute care surgeons to diversify their practice while providing greater access to minimally invasive approaches for emergency general surgery patients.