Zimmer Holdings, Inc. Friday announced that it has entered into an agreement with UNMC to establish a Zimmer Institute training site at the school to collaborate on advancement of minimally invasive procedures and technologies for joint replacement surgery. UNMC becomes just the third U.S. training site for Zimmer.
The UNMC location is under the direction of Kevin Garvin, M.D., professor and chair of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and Rehabilitation. Under terms of the agreement, Todd Sekundiak, M.D., assistant professor of orthopaedics, will train orthopaedic surgeons to use Zimmer’s minimally invasive technologies and participate in product refinement. The university will function as a Zimmer Institute teaching facility and will become a center of excellence for patients undergoing minimally invasive joint replacement surgery.
“We are pleased to be partnering with an outstanding group of orthopaedic surgeons and the University of Nebraska Medical Center, and look forward to working with them to make the patient benefits of minimally invasive surgical procedures more widely available,” said Zimmer Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Ray Elliott.
“Minimally invasive joint replacement is getting people back to work or to their hobbies more quickly, but the patient benefits and the expected savings to the overall health care system will only be realized when the procedures are widely available. As a respected training institution, UNMC will play a key role in realizing the promise of minimally invasive surgical procedures.”
“We are excited about the prospect of combining what we have learned about minimally invasive orthopaedics with the experience of Zimmer and the other members of the Zimmer Institute network,” Dr. Garvin said. “As an internationally known teaching institution, we believe this opportunity to expand surgeon education is very consistent with our mission and our expertise.”
One focus of activity at the UNMC location will be development of computer-assisted technologies for surgical navigation in minimally invasive surgical procedures. Zimmer has worked closely with Dr. Sekundiak on development of next-generation computer-assisted systems that would employ electromagnetics in minimally invasive total knee replacement surgeries.
In addition to their involvement in minimally invasive surgical programs, Drs. Sekundiak and Garvin will be working with Zimmer to develop training courses related to revision joint replacement.
“The number of revision procedures, as a percentage of all joint replacements, is growing as people live longer and expect to maintain an active lifestyle later in life,” Dr. Sekundiak said. “I look forward to working with Zimmer to help a greater number of orthopaedic surgeons become more comfortable with these complex revision procedures.”
Another UNMC faculty member, Matthew Mormino, M.D., will conduct training courses related to orthopaedic trauma.
UNMC orthopaedic surgeons will perform about 200 minimally invasive joint replacement surgeries in 2004, Dr. Sekundiak said, making it the most active program in the state. “We are pleased to be partnering with other orthopaedic surgeons in the community to spread the educational aspects of orthopaedic surgery around the country and the world,” he said.
Zimmer opened the first location of the Zimmer Institute at the company’s headquarters in Warsaw, Ind., in 2003. Since then, it has established partnerships with Johns Hopkins University and the Tucson Orthopaedic Institute in the United States, as well as with several international partners.
It is hoped that the network of Zimmer Institute locations will contribute to a common pool of data and best practices, thus enabling each partner to benefit from the experience and developments of the others. The company expects to provide training for more than 1,400 surgeons during 2004 at all institute locations.