The region's patients will no longer need to travel to Melbourne for state-of-the-art knee replacement surgery.
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St John of God Ballarat Hospital is the first Victorian regional hospital to use the latest in robotic knee replacement surgery technology.
The hospital has made a "significant investment" in purchasing a VELYS Robotic-Assisted Solution to help surgeons perform knee replacement surgery tailored to each patient.
St John of God Ballarat Hospital perioperative manager Jacque Greenwood said gaining access to the robot showed the hospital's state-of-the-art technology would continue to grow.
"It's a significant investment so it's fantastic for the community. It's state of the art technology that will only keep growing coming into the future," Ms Greenwood said.
"The VALYS, what it means for our St John's community and the Ballarat community, is that patients don't need to travel to Melbourne to have this type of technology and it has been designed for more accuracy and speed up the surgeon's cuts in a total knee replacement."
On average, St John of God Ballarat Hospital does 360 total knee replacements a year.
Eight patients have already undergone surgery with the VALYS robot.
The first-of-its-kind robot is designed to help surgeons accurately resect bones that align and position the implant relative to the soft-tissue during total knee replacement.
Orthopaedic surgeon Paul Plank said the robot allowed surgeons to be more accurate and reproducible.
He said the registration process was a little time consuming, compared with surgery without the robot, but the saw cutting was quicker.
The robotic-assisted device uses an infrared camera and optical trackers to help surgeons gather the necessary patient anatomy data to position the knee implant in real time.
It does not move or operate on its own and is guided by the skilled and experienced surgeons hands.
"The robot is really a tool to help us do it in a more accurate way," Mr Plank said.
"This way of doing it, it allows us to measure within half a degree and half a millimetre. It's really super accurate."
Mr Plank said the VALYS robot was the greatest and latest system that existed and it meant patients from Ballarat and surrounding regions did not have to travel to Melbourne.
He said his patients thought it was fantastic a robot would be used in their surgery.
Total knee replacements occur at the end stage of osteoarthritis, after patients have exhausted other medical treatments including medication and physiotherapy.
Mr Plank said with an aging population, he was certain health departments were predicting more surgeries over the next 10 years.
St John of God Health Ballarat Hospital chief executive officer Alex Demidov said having the VELYS Robotic-Assisted Solution was a commitment by the hospital to providing patients access to the latest medical technology.
"It is important to have the very latest surgical techniques and technologies made available to our local community and to the wider Grampians region," Mr Demidov said.
"Our surgeons are leading innovation to ensure the very best clinical outcomes for our patients are achieved each and every day."
The robot is accompanied by the latest in medical training technology for the surgical team.
St John of God Ballarat Hospital nurses supporting VELYS Robotic-Assisted Solution procedures have undertaken comprehensive training operating the technology.
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