St. Joseph’s First In Arizona to Receive Center of Excellence Designation in Robotic Surgery

(PHOENIX - January 11, 2019) - Dignity Health St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center and St. Joseph’s Westgate Medical Center have each been designated a Center of Excellence in Robotic Surgery by Surgical Review Corporation (SRC). The two hospitals are the first in Arizona to receive this distinguished designation. 

An SRC accreditation helps patients identify medical providers who have met rigorous standards for delivering high-quality medical treatment, including perioperative, surgical and long-term follow-up care. Surgeons who receive individual recognition by SRC must also meet a high volume threshold. St. Joseph’s and St. Joseph’s Westgate perform more than 1,200 robotic cases per year.

“Earning accreditation as a Center of Excellence in Robotic Surgery signifies that St. Joseph’s consistently delivers the safest and highest quality care and technology to our patients,” said Nita Desai, MD, director of the Robotic Surgery Center of Excellence at St. Joseph’s. “Our commitment to excellence and the ability for the most advanced surgeons to perform surgery with advanced robotic technology will greatly improve the surgical outcomes of our patients who come to us for medical treatment.”

Surgeries within several medical specialties, including gynecology, urology, bariatrics, thoracic, colorectal and general surgery can now be performed without open surgery and with the assistance of a sophisticated, minimally invasive robotic platform. These types of technologies use robotic arms to hold endoscopic cameras and surgical tools. After the surgeon makes the initial incisions, the robotic arms are directed by the surgeon to perform the procedure while receiving and using 3D images from the endoscopic cameras. This allows for the best possible outcome. 

To earn the Center of Excellence designation from SRC, a facility must meet 10 requirements: institutional commitment to excellence, surgical experience, a physician program director, consultative services, robotic equipment and instrumentation, surgeon dedication and qualified call coverage, clinical pathways and standard operating procedures, surgical team and support staff, patient education and a continuous quality assessment.

Established in 2003, SRC is an internationally recognized patient safety organization dedicated to recognizing and refining surgical care. SRC is the leading administrator of quality improvement and accreditation programs for surgeons and hospitals worldwide. SRC’s proven methodology, known as the “Cycle of Excellence,” results in quantifiable and unparalleled improvement in outcomes, patient safety and costs across surgical specialties. To measure improvement and develop best practices, SRC offers a multispecialty outcomes database that is the world’s largest repository of clinical patient data for minimally invasive surgery.

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