Northwest Austin Edition | June 2025

BY CHLOE YOUNG

The impact

Looking ahead

Founded in 2011, St. David’s Texas Institute for Robotic Surgery has trained surgeons on how to perform procedures using robotic technol- ogy nationwide. The institute has piloted the expansion of robotics procedures across 180 HCA Healthcare hospitals, Payne said. “It was the test tube of how to do robotics and how to do it the best in the world,” Payne said about the Austin-based institute. “The best is actually right here in Austin at St. David’s.” Dell Children’s has invested in robotics tech- nology so Austin-area families can feel confident they are receiving the most advanced care close to home, Dell Children’s President Adam Messer said. “It’s an essential component of recovery and thriving after a health care experience to be where you’re familiar and where you’re loved,” Messer said. “When people have to leave Austin to receive health care, it’s a failure on our part as health care leaders.”

Austin-area hospital leaders and doctors say they expect to see innovations in the industry going forward. Dell Children’s began using a da Vinci robot for urology procedures at the Dell Children’s Central Campus in December, Messer said. This fall, the hospital plans to onboard a new fetal surgery team to perform in- utero procedures for babies with genetic deformities, he said. Payne said he expects that surgeons may eventually be able to use dyes to identify cancer, blood vessels and nerves in real time. Doctors may begin consulting other surgeons by teleconferencing into the operating room, Isbell said. “There will always be human judgment, but that human judgment will be enhanced by all types of computer assistance and artificial intelligence and things that would really make the surgeons much, much better at what they do,” Payne said.

The da Vinci system used by Ascension Seton allows for greater precision and faster recovery times.

“You do not have to leave Austin to get any spine or scoliosis care. We can do everything here.” DR. BRIAN KAUFMAN, PEDIATRIC ORTHOPEDIC SURGEON AT DELL CHILDREN’S

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