IU Health West Hospital

The Next Step: IU Health West Hospital Launches Robotic Surgery Program

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The surgical team at IU Health West Hospital is taking patient care to the next level. The hospital is the first and only location in Hendricks County to offer advanced robotic surgery.

The team began using the new technology at the end of December.

“Robotic surgery is an instrument used to do various operations,” explains Dr. Christopher Bearden, general surgeon and medical director of IU Health West surgical services. “We’ve done open surgery, which is where we cut people open. Then we did the laparoscopy, which is small holes. Robotics is the next step in that evolution. It gives you better optics, better feel of the tissues, better visualization.”

The technology allows surgeons to operate with extreme precision, while keeping the incision sites small.

Sean Eads, manager of clinical operations for IU Health West’s surgical services, helped the team train on the new technology for several weeks before rolling it out for patients.

“The surgeons have a 3D view, which they currently do not have when they do standard laparoscopic procedures,” Eads says. “They do everything with their fingertips.”

The surgeons sit in what Eads refers to as a “driver,” and how they move their hands is how the instrument head moves. “It has the ability to do really a lot of finesse, more so than you can actually do with the human hand,” Bearden adds.

For those who might be nervous or intimidated by hearing that a robot will aid in their surgery, Bearden stresses that the surgeon is still in control.

“The robot is not doing the operation,” he says. “The surgeon is doing the operation. The robot is just mimicking the moves I do. It doesn’t do anything on its own.”

The Goal Is Better Patient Outcomes

Though the robot does not guarantee an easier, faster recovery for the patient, that is what the team has seen overall, according to Bearden.

“Because you are able to do a better operation, the results are better,” he says. “It helps patients get back to work better.”

Many surgeries that the team now performs robotically were previously open surgeries. The new technology allows the procedures to be outpatient, whereas before, the patient would have to spend more time recovering in the hospital.

More Training to Further the Program

Though the team trained extensively to use the robot, Eads plans for that training to continue.

“A lot of things happen behind the scenes to get us where we need to be, and we need to do more and more of that training as we move forward,” he says.

Bearden also recognizes that the equipment requires more intensive training, for doctors and other operating-room team members.

“There are a lot more instruments, a lot more mechanical things moving around,” he says. “You have to have a bigger room. There’s a lot of flow that has to happen.”

The goal of the robotic program is to expand the capabilities of surgeries at the hospital. The early focus was more general surgeries, but Bearden has a specific hope for the future.

“Once we get the staff trained, we will start doing more cancer cases,” he says. “That’s really the goal of all of this.”

Putting Patient Care at the Forefront 

Part of the excitement surrounding the program is that IU Health West is the first hospital on the west side of Indianapolis to offer robotic surgery. Though the team is thrilled to be part of that milestone, the focus has always been on the patients.

One major benefit to robotic surgery is that while the robot doesn’t act on its own, it does run safety checks throughout the procedure.

“It’s running over 1,000 checks a second – energy usage, pressure on tissues, things that the brain can’t even comprehend,” Bearden adds. “So yes, it is a robot, it is mimicking movements we’re doing, but it’s also a big safety factor.”

All of these components help the hospital with its primary mission – providing the best care possible for the patients who walk through the doors to get better.

“We have a little saying in-house that ‘West does it best,’ and we’re going to do this the very best as well,” Eads says. “It just gives us another tool to provide top-notch care to the folks in the community.”