Independent hospitals are increasingly rare in the United States amid rising costs and competition. But Jupiter Medical Center in Jupiter, Florida, has stood alone—comfortably—for 45 years.
JMC faces many of the same issues as its standalone peers, according to president and CEO Dr. Amit Rastogi. The health system is not immune to inflation or workforce shortages, but one investment in particular has helped it to thrive despite external pressures: robotics.
The health system launched its robotic surgery program in 2010, and it has grown into one of the largest, most advanced programs in the nation. Its $10 million collection includes six da Vinci robots and three orthopedic robots.
Advancing innovation, expanding access and elevating the patient experience are JMC’s top priorities heading into 2025, Rastogi told Newsweek—and surgical robots have helped the system to further all three goals.
In JMC’s community, wait lists for elective surgeries were getting longer, Rastogi said. To expand access, the health system built a 90,000-square-foot surgical institute with 16 smart operating rooms and two hybrid operating suites, allowing for minimally invasive surgeries and open procedures. The new facility, which was unveiled in November 2023, gives JMC’s state-of-the-art technology a state-of-the-art home.
These investments have also been “incredibly helpful” in boosting patient experience scores, according to Rastogi.
“We’ve been continuing to invest in robotic technology because surgeries are not just about what happens in the operating room, but also how quickly patients recover,” he said. “Not only is the surgery more precise with minimally invasive procedures, it also leads to quicker recovery, which helps patients get back to all the things that they want to do faster than they were able to with open procedures in the past.”
The health system currently uses robotic technology in a number of specialties, including colorectal, general surgery, gynecology, oncology, orthopedics, cardiac surgery, thoracic surgery and urology. Some of its machines are embedded with artificial intelligence, Rastogi said.
Plus, more precise machines can also help surgeons to work more accurately. Recruiting and retaining top-notch physicians has helped JMC to become a destination hospital, according to Rastogi. A few months ago, a patient traveled from Boston—one of the country’s premier health care hotspots—to seek care from a doctor at JMC.
“As we’ve grown our expertise in both the depth and breadth of the great doctors that we have on our medical staff, and as we’ve made more investments in both the facilities and the technology, what we’ve seen is that patients are traveling from further and further away to come to Jupiter Medical Center for their care,” Rastogi said.
JMC recently surpassed 10,000 robotic surgeries—and despite being the region’s only independent health system, it was the first to perform a robotic minimally invasive direct coronary artery bypass surgery (commonly referred to as a MIDCAB). In the past, surgeons had to open the sternum to perform the invasive procedure, and some patients took several months to recover. MIDCAB shortens the length of hospital stays and recovery periods, while lowering patients’ pain, blood loss and morbidity.
Only 19 percent of U.S. hospitals are independent, according to a December 2024 report from Definitive Healthcare. But Rastogi sees JMC’s independent status as a blessing, one that allows the health system to stay “laser-focused” on its quality and safety goals without getting weighed down by “competing interests,” like some larger health systems do.
The health system’s freedom to innovate and invest in patients has been fundamental to not only its identity, but to its success, according to Rastogi.
“In the past, people used to say if you get sick in Florida, you have to get on a plane and go north,” he said. “Now we’re actually seeing much of the reverse, which is patients getting on a plane and coming down here to get their care—which is something that we’re really proud of as a health care provider.”
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