3 ms·

This is blatantly incorrect. All of the latest evidence suggests that robotic surgery is not associated with clinically (or even statistical in many cases) sign

This is blatantly incorrect. All of the latest evidence suggests that robotic surgery is not associated with clinically (or even statistical in many cases) significant improvements in patient outcomes when compared with other minimally invasive techniques (laparoscopy), currently the only field where robotics may have some benefit is in urology and even then, it isn't all that clear. Robotics have clinically significant improved outcomes only when compared to open procedures. No one is scared of robotics but it costs the hospital a lot more money to run the DaVinci system and it requires significantly more OR downtime to prep between cases reducing OR utilization and the number of cases you can do. Robotics may one day be the answer but not yet. 1. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3254844/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3254844/ 2. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00384-016-2516-7 http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00384-016-2516-7

nwah1 10y ago
But that's just it. For instance, the FDA just the other week denied approval to a hopeful competitor to DaVinci, called SurgiBot. This is preventing competition from driving costs down. Hopefully the big new entrants, Johnson & Johnson in partnership with Google, will have enough clout to shake things up. It is not only difficult to bring new products to market, but also difficult to improve existing products. The 510k application process is claimed to be getting less onerous, but yet it still takes over a year to get a decision after submission. It's just hard to get anything out there in our highly regulated, litigious, and fearful society. The rapid iteration that we like to see in tech can't do its magic in this environment.