University Hospitals Surgeons, Ohio’s First to Provide Robotic Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery, Discuss Patient Benefits and Booming Program

Innovations in Cardiovascular Medicine & Surgery | February 2025

Since launching the robotic cardiac surgery program in December of 2023, cardiac surgeons at University Hospitals (UH) Harrington Heart & Vascular Institute have built a robust program completing eight to 10 procedures per month on average, more than 100 total at UH Cleveland Medical Center. This makes it one of the highest volume programs in the country. Since higher volumes result from experienced physicians, quality outcomes for patients correlate as well.

“While beneficial, this type of surgery is uncommon at centers across the country because it is technically challenging and requires expert skill with both the robot and coronary artery bypass grafting off the heart-lung machine,” says Pablo Ruda Vega, MD, Co-Director of the Coronary Center at UH Harrington Heart & Vascular Institute.

Dr. Ruda Vega and Yasir Abu-Omar, MD, PhD, Chief of Cardiac Surgery at UH Harrington Heart & Vascular Institute and the Russ and Connie Lincoln Chair in Cardiovascular Innovation, recently detailed the advantages for patients of the robotic cardiac surgery program in a wide-ranging interview with Cleveland’s ideastream: The Sound of Ideas public radio program “The robot for us is a new tool to do the surgery in a less invasive way,” says Dr. Ruda Vega. “Patients have more options. Safe and fast recovery is the best way to describe what robotic surgery can do for us.”