Just 15 months after surpassing 500 procedures, Southcoast Health Orthopedic Surgeon, Christopher Skeehan, MD, and his team reached yet another impressive milestone. This summer they performed their 1,000th robotic-assisted total joint replacement procedure with Mako technology.
“Helping someone who couldn’t walk get back to their life—to work, to their family, to do what they love. That’s the heart of what we do,” said Christopher Skeehan, MD, Orthopedic Surgeon at Southcoast Health.
The Mako Robotic-Arm assisted technology is an innovative solution for orthopedic surgeons at Southcoast Health’s Charlton Memorial Hospital, providing treatment for individuals in need of knee or hip replacements.
“With our experience, these procedures have become intuitive for us. I like to say we can now perform them with the precision and coordination of a NASCAR pit crew,” Skeehan explained. “We’ve done this so many times, it’s become second nature, and I am proud to say that it has directly translated to better outcomes for our patients.”
This milestone is the result of a coordinated team effort. From the schedulers and care navigators to the Orthopedic Physician Assistants and surgical team, everyone plays a unique role in getting patients from their initial consultations back to living their lives with less pain post-op.
As the team invests more time into these procedures, their commitment to innovation has evolved into a high-efficiency, high-quality program that now performs over 350 robotic assisted joint replacements each year.
“This success is a testament to the dedication and collaboration of our entire team,” said Dennis La Rock, MD, Executive Vice President and Chief Physician Officer at Southcoast Health. “Robotic surgery is transforming the way we care for patients, offering less invasive procedures, faster recovery, and better outcomes. I am incredibly proud of the progress we’ve made, and I’m excited about what the future holds for robotic surgery at Southcoast Health and for the patients in our region who benefit from this innovation.”
Over the past four years, the orthopedic team has significantly increased the volume of joint replacement procedures, from 750 procedures to over 1,000 procedures annually and are committed to providing high-quality joint care with advanced techniques.
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