Robotics

Medical devicemaker Medtronic named Mike Marinaro its operating unit president for surgical robotics, the company said March 17.

DOCS Health, a 21-physician group in Beverly Hills, Calif., is one of the few practices in the world to offer spine surgery with two robots: Medtronic's Mazor X and Globus Medical's ExcelsiusGPS.

Thirty years from now, every operating room could have a robot for spine surgeries or joint replacements. Robotics has been the buzz word in spine surgery for years, but most surgeons agree the technology is incomplete. That said, what's next…

Accelus' LineSider spine system was used with the devicemaker's Remi robotic system for the first time in December.

Akron, Ohio-based Crystal Clinic Orthopaedic Center is one of the first hospitals in the region with the Mazor X Stealth robotic surgical system.

Kornelis Poelstra, MD, PhD, has completed 1,111 robotic-assisted spine surgeries and says enabling technologies such as robotics and augmented reality are "just beginning to scratch the surface" in spine surgery.

Here are five hospitals and health systems that added spine and orthopedic surgical robots in February:

Bethlehem, Pa.-based St. Luke's University Health Network added Medtronic's Mazor X robotic system for minimally invasive spine surgery.

Miami Valley South Hospital in Centerville, Ohio, has begun offering robotic-assisted surgery using the Stryker Mako robot.

Kingsley Abode-Iyamah, MD, performed one of the first robotic-assisted awake spinal fusions in Florida in February, the surgeon announced in a Feb. 25 LinkedIn post.