St Vincent’s Healthcare Group and UPMC have announced a strategic partnership aimed at increasing patient access to life saving technologies and treatments. The partnership will focus on specialities in cardiology, urology, oncology, muscular-skeletal and community care.
St Vincent’s Healthcare Group is one of the larger hospital groups in the Ireland-East region incorporating St Vincent’s Private Hospital (SVPH), St Michael’s Hospital and St Vincent’s University Hospital (SVUH). Its three hospitals care for over 500,000 patients every year, providing care to patients with complex medical and surgical requirements.
Headquartered in Pittsburgh, UPMC is an international health care pioneer in research, treatments and clinical care, operating 11 hospitals, clinics and research centres across Ireland, including UPMC Sports Surgery Clinic at Santry, UPMC Whitfield Hospital, UPMC Kildare Hospital and UPMC Aut Even Hospital.
The first collaboration under the partnership is the establishment of a new centre of teaching excellence in robotic surgery at SVPH. Robotic assisted surgery is the most rapidly developing field of minimally invasive surgery and is utilised across the healthcare group. SVPH, the largest acute private hospital in Dublin will train and educate current and future healthcare professionals in robotic surgery.
The strategic partnership will also see investment in advanced healthcare technologies to provide innovative care to patients in Ireland. The first investment is the installation of Medtronic’s Hugo™ Robotic- assisted Surgery (RAS) system at SVPH. SVPH is the first hospital in Ireland to install the Hugo RAS system which is one of the most advanced platforms for robotic surgeries.
Gerry O’Brien, Group Director of Operations, SVHG said “This initiative is a good example of our two organisations working collaboratively together as envisaged in our partnership to jointly develop and enhance our hospitals clinical services for the benefit of the communities and patients we care for. This partnership builds on our existing robotics programme, introduced in our healthcare Group in 2017. The 2000th robotic surgery procedure was recently completed in St Vincent’s University Hospital.”
Brian Fitzgerald, CEO, SVPH said; “Put simply, this partnership is about making patient’s lives better by improving access to the newest technologies and treatment regimes. We are excited at the potential of robotic assisted surgeries for our patients and our staff will be at the forefront of surgical innovations with the establishment of the SVPH – UPMC teaching centre of excellence in robotics. We are delighted to partner with UPMC who share our ethos of continuous reinvestment to provide our patients with world class healthcare”.
Eamonn Fitzgerald, Managing Director, UPMC Ireland said; “UPMC believes in accessible healthcare that puts patients first. Like UPMC, SVPH is at the forefront of patient care and medicine innovation. We are pleased that through our partnership, together we can provide innovative treatments and specialised care to more patients. We are excited at the opportunities future programmes with SVPH will deliver for our patients”.
The Hugo robotic-assisted surgery system will be used initially in SVPH to perform robotic-assisted urology surgeries of prostate and kidney.
Prof Barry McGuire Consultant Urologist, SVPH said: “Robotic assisted surgery has revolutionised surgical operations for patients, now having the ability to deliver highly complex operations that were only possible with open surgery, with all of the advantages of minimally invasive surgery such as reduced complications, quicker recovery and the ability for the patient to return back to normal life”.
