What happened
Hawai‘i joined a short list of places offering the world's first FDA-authorized (De Novo, 2021) smart knee implant when Dr. Morton placed a Zimmer Biomet Persona IQ® total knee on October 4, 2022. The operation combined two milestones the practice had already normalized — robotic-assisted precision and same-day outpatient joint replacement — with something genuinely new: an implant that measures its own recovery.
What makes a knee "smart"
The Persona IQ pairs a proven knee replacement design with sensors sealed inside the tibial stem. From the day of surgery, the implant itself records step count, walking speed, stride length, cadence, and range of motion — no wearable to charge, no diary to keep — and transmits the data to a secure portal the care team reviews. Recovery stops being anecdotal ("I think I'm walking more") and becomes measurable. The full patient guide lives on the Persona IQ page.
Why it matters for island patients
Objective remote monitoring lands differently in a state of islands. A patient who flies home to Hilo, Kona, Guam, or beyond after surgery normally recovers out of the surgeon's sight; with a smart knee, Dr. Morton's team watches the recovery curve from Honolulu and intervenes early if the data stalls — a natural fit with telehealth follow-up for patients in Hawai‘i and with the fly-in patient program the practice was built around.
Part of a pattern
The smart knee joined a run of firsts in 2022: Hawai‘i's first robotic total hip replacement and the Big Island's first robotic joint replacement came earlier the same year — the reason local media started calling him The Robot Doc. Curious whether a smart knee fits your case? Ask at your knee replacement consultation — Dr. Morton offers it only when he is using Zimmer Biomet implants.
Medically reviewed by Paul Norio Morton, MD, FAAOS, FAAHKS. Last reviewed: . This article is for education only and isn’t a substitute for an exam and personalized advice — schedule a consultation to discuss your situation.