Scottsdale, Ariz. (July 8, 2022) – HonorHealth, a leading Valley healthcare system serving 1.6 million people in the greater Phoenix area, announced today that HonorHealth Deer Valley Medical Center is the first hospital to perform the first two robotic heart surgeries at HonorHealth.
Robotic cardiac surgery is minimally invasive surgery performed on the heart using a robotic device. The device, which is maneuvered by the surgeon remotely, has the same range of motion as the surgeon’s hands but is much smaller, helping to make the movements smoother and precise, with higher magnification. The use of this innovative technology allows the surgeon to create a smaller incision and helps the patient recover much faster, while operating on a beating heart. This surgery allows sicker, more frail and older patients to benefit as well.
Last week, Zain Khalpey, MD, PhD, a cardiothoracic surgeon and director of Artificial Heart, Mechanical Circulatory Support, ECMO, and network director of Artificial Intelligence at HonorHealth, performed these first two robotic heart surgeries at HonorHealth alongside a team of experts at HonorHealth Deer Valley Medical Center.
“This form of robotic heart surgery allows quicker operation times, minimal ventilation times, shorter hospital stays, and offers a hybrid approach with stents and coronary artery bypass on a beating heart,” says Dr. Khalpey. “This leading-edge technology is a first step to do more complex coronary artery bypass grafting with arteries, which have better longevity and survival than traditional bypass surgery. At HonorHealth, we are looking to transform an old way of doing heart surgery, more efficiently and deliberately.”
