Bingham Memorial Hospital gets ‘first of its kind’ robotic surgery
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BLACKFOOT — Bingham Memorial hospital is taking a step forward in its medical practices.
“It’s advancing technology, state-of-the-art, first of its kind,” Bingham Memorial Hospital CEO Jeff Daniels says.
The Mazor X robotics system provides minimally invasive, robot-guided spine surgery.
“You’re able to preoperatively plan exactly where placement of instrumentation is going, where skin incisions are made, and thereby increasing your precision and accuracy and allowing you to do it more minimally invasive,” orthopedic spine surgeon, Dr. Robert Johnson says.
The precision through robot guided surgery allows the surgeon to perform in a more exact area with less exposure and mobility typically associated with traditional spine surgery.
“Once you’re in that operating room your able to upload that plan into the robotic and the software. The robot helps you execute that plan and thereby helping minimize some of the variations that are associated with, unfortunately, human error or human aspect of surgery,” Johson said.
Bingham Memorial Hospital is one of the first hospitals to receive this new system. It’s one of five hospitals in the country utilizing the Mazor X.
“Mazor X is somewhat in its infancy,” Johnson said.
The hospital acquired the Mazor X because Johnson, of BMH’s Idaho Back Institute, is one of five physicians worldwide trained on the robotics system. He was a part of the development and testing of the Mazor X.
“We had wonderful Dr. Johnson here, and we wanted to be able to use his skills that he trained on when he was in fellowship,” Daniels said. “This will bring a unique piece of equipment that will change how spine surgery is done in eastern Idaho.”
The Mazor X’s largest advantage is its ability to help patients recover faster.
“With spine surgery it’s a precarious and technically demanding surgery anyways and has certain complications that have been traditionally acceptable,” Johnson said. “What Mazor X does is help lessen or decrease the risks of those complications, thereby improving patient outcomes.”