Docking of the da Vinci Si Surgical System® with single-site technology.

BACKGROUND: Strategies to spare operating room (OR) times are crucial to limiting the costs involved in robotic surgery. Among other factors, the pre-operative set-up and docking phases have been incriminated at first to be time consuming. The docking process on the standard multiport da Vinci Surgical System has not been shown to significantly prolong the overall OR time. This study aims to analyse whether the length of the docking process on the new da Vinci Si Surgical System with Single-Site™ technology remains acceptable.
METHODS: We prospectively analysed all of the robotic single-incision cholecystectomies performed at our institution for docking and operating times during 2011-2012. The docking task load was assessed each time in a self-administered fashion by the docking surgeon using the NASA TLX visual scale.
RESULTS: Sixty-four robotic single-incision cholecystectomies were included and analysed. The mean operative time was 78 min. Two surgeons with previous robotic surgery experience and a group of three less experienced robotic surgeons were responsible for docking the system. They performed 45, 10 and nine dockings, respectively. The overall mean docking time was 6.4 min with no significant difference between the groups. The docking process represented approximately 8% of the operating time. The surgeon with the most procedures showed significant progress in his docking times. The different task load parameters did not show a statistical difference between the three groups, with the exception of the frustration parameter, which was higher in the group of less experienced surgeons. There were significant correlations between docking times and the assessment of the various task load parameters.
CONCLUSION: The docking process for a robotic single-incision cholecystectomy is learned rapidly and does not significantly increase the overall OR time.