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MORGANTOWN – In a science fiction movie, a tall, white, headless robot with four multi-jointed, spear-tipped arms would roll after you, probably writing your fate.

For WVU Medicine, the robot and all of its accompanying equipment represent the future of surgery, enabling more precise, minimally invasive surgery with smaller incisions and much less pain for the patient.

The new daVinci 5 robotic surgery system was on display in the back of the room Friday at the WVUM Robotics Summit held at the Morgantown Marriott at Waterfront Place.

WVUM doesn’t have one yet, said director of robotics Kristy Ward, but it has a growing robotics program, and DV 5 — with 150 technological advances over the current multi-port da Vince Xi — is to come.

One of the most significant advances, said Jason Fromer, area vice president for the US East, is

Pressure-sensitive technology with force feedback in the manual console controls. With previous robots, surgeons had to learn to interpret how much pressure they were putting on the patient’s tissue and organs using their eyes,

The force feedback pressure, he said, is the result of Intuitive’s (maker of the da Vincis) longest engineering project. It measures the pressure exerted by the instruments and transfers it back to the hand controls so the doctor can feel it. The pressure sensitivity is adjustable for doctors of different experience levels and allows for less force to be exerted on the tissue.

Ward and other speakers described the many benefits of robot-assisted surgery.

It requires smaller incisions. Hospital time is reduced and patients can go home and return to work faster.

Ward said that for an open hysterectomy (the traditional surgery with hand scalpels and large incisions), the patient would have a three to five day stay and four to six weeks of work. For a robot-assisted hysterectomy, the patient is in one day and usually back to work in one week.

“The difference between open surgery and minimally invasive surgery is a big issue for these patients,” she said. “Patients experience minimally invasive surgery.”

Robotic surgery lowers patient and hospital costs, speakers said. Lower costs mean higher revenue margins for hospitals, which can be reinvested to regularly improve care. Systemwide, they can save $10 million by converting all open surgeries and most laparoscopic surgeries to robotic procedures.

Robotic surgeries reduce operating time, which allows for more per day – increasing patient service and increasing hospital revenue.

Ergonomic surgical consoles can extend the life of surgeons – producing on the back, neck and shoulders. And a strong program will help and recruit more high-quality surgeons to West Virginia.

Speakers described the evolution of robotic surgery nationally and at WVUM.

Nationally, since 2012 laparoscopic operations have decreased from 56% of all operations to 43%. Open operations fell from 34% to 18%.

And da Vinci robotic surgeries climbed from 10% to 39%. Robotic surgery is expected to overtake laparoscopic surgery by 2025 or 2026.

Meanwhile, WVUM beats the national average. From 2019-2023, laparoscopic surgeries fell from 50% to 28%; open operations from 30% to 13%; while robotic operations climbed from 20% to 60%.

In 2018, WVUM had three da Vincis – two of them at Ruby Memorial. WVUM now has 28 robots, both da Vinci Xi multiple ports and da Vinci SP single ports – with eight at Ruby and plans to acquire two more.

In 2018, WVU has 47 robotics-trained surgeons, the system now has 119, and Ruby has three more coming on board in January. In 2023, when they had just 18 robots, they performed 4,594 surgeries and will surpass that number this year. Since 2011, they have performed more than 28,000 robotic surgeries.

Dr. Meghan Turner, ENT surgeon, told the audience that a traditional tonsil cancer procedure would involve splitting the lower jaw and lip and removing the tongue to reach the diseased area. With a da Vinci SP, she can just go into the mouth with a single port that has a 3D HD camera and multi-joint instruments and go straight to the tumor.

A new system-wide robotics committee had its first meeting in September, Ward said, and the summit provided the opportunity for the first in-person meeting. Different hospitals already have robotics committees and will use their experiences to make recommendations to the system-wide committee, which will act as a resource to spread knowledge across the system and help standardize operations and care.

WVUM has the largest robotics program in the state. Nick Barcellona, ​​WVUM’s chief financial officer, talked about how this can help the state’s notoriously poor health.

“Although there are some challenges for us, we are at the top of the pack,” he said. “And we have the ability to change the way we deliver care, to change outcomes here. And instead of being somewhere between 45^th and 50^th in all these different health outcomes – we’re not going to be number one overnight, but that’s how we get there, the work that you all do here.”

Ward said, “The big picture is that everyone in West Virginia can get the robotic surgery they need and stay close to home.”