US – Medtronic, an American-Irish registered medical device company, has integrated hugo robotic-assisted surgery (RAS) system at Hospital Clinico de la Red de Salud UC CHRISTUS in Santiago, Chile, to support the teaching institution’s new robotic surgery program.

UC CHRISTUS is the latest institution to join Medtronic’s Partners in Possibility Program, a group of pioneering hospitals that will be among the first in the world to use the Hugo RAS system in support of the Hugo system patient registry.

The Hugo RAS system combines the precision of wristed instruments with the flexibility of independent robotic arm carts and best-in-class 3D visualization technology on an open console.

Touch Surgery Enterprise, a cloud-based surgical video capture option powered by artificial intelligence which allows surgeons to seamlessly record, analyze, and share Hugo system case footage.

“Our surgical robotics vision — to expand access to quality care to more people in more places — is coming to life at UC CHRISTUS,” said Carla Peron, M.D., chief medical officer of the Surgical Robotics business, which is part of the Medical Surgical Portfolio at Medtronic. “It’s incredibly exciting to see our teams working together to bring surgical robotics where it couldn’t exist before, all for the benefit of patients.”

The integration comes barely a month after the first patient procedure with the Hugo RAS system was performed at Clínica Santa Maria in Santiago, Chile.

In Latin America, approximately 75% of surgeries are conducted as open procedures. With minimally invasive surgery (MIS), those patients could experience fewer complications, shorter hospital stays, faster return to normal activities, and smaller scars.

RAS delivers the benefits of MIS, yet accounts for less than three percent of all surgeries performed today, mostly due to historic cost and utilization barriers that put it out of reach for many hospitals.

A global leader in open and laparoscopic surgery, Medtronic designed the Hugo RAS system to help improve robotics economics and utilization based on input from hundreds of clinicians and hospital executives.

The Hugo RAS system is not cleared or approved in the U.S. or Europe and its approval will be based regulatory requirements of various countries and regions.

Medtronic boasts of its success in various medical neurovascular product portfolios that have impacted the of over 1 million patients worldwide.

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