Two Dartmouth Health hospitals are now offering knee, hip, and shoulder joint replacement surgeries using joint mapping and robotic-assisted surgical tools.

"The main advantage of adding robotics to our surgical toolkit is that it has the potential to elevate our patients' clinical outcomes even further, by improving the precision of implant positioning and thereby optimizing post-surgical hip and knee function," Ivan M. Tomek, MD said in a press release.

The three different technology platforms are giving surgeons at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center and Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital a more precise reading of the patient’s joint alignment, soft tissues, and anatomy. The first will allow surgeons to see a simulation of the scanned joint moving in real-time, another system quickly acquires precise measurements of the implant position during a shooter X-ray in the operating room, and the third synchronizes the surgeon’s tools with mapping software to guide the surgeon with feedback.

"Robotic technology recognizes that every patient and every knee is different, and it enables us to more accurately measure and cut where it makes the most sense for each individual patient,” Wayne E. Moschetti, MD, MS said in a press release. "One of the goals is to release less soft tissue around the joint and use the technology to prepare the bone in a way that appropriately balances the artificial joint to the patient’s ligaments and tendons. This has the potential to reduce recovery times and makes the joint feel more 'natural' to the patient."

Learn more about this new technology here.