A homecoming first: robotic joint replacement reaches the Big Island

Weeks after performing the state's first robotic total hip replacement on O‘ahu, Dr. Morton brought robotic-assisted precision to Kona Community Hospital — the first robotic-assisted joint replacement ever performed on Hawai‘i Island, completed March 3, 2022. The patient walked the same day.

Dr. Morton was raised in Kea‘au, in Puna on the island's east side, and did half of his medical-school clinical training on the Big Island. The islands' geography of care — where advanced surgery has always meant a flight to Honolulu, or beyond — isn't an abstraction to him; it's his family's experience. Bringing a robotic first to the island, rather than asking the island to fly to it, was the point. His Hilo clinic continues the same logic.

Robotic joint replacement is available to Hawai‘i Island patients through a simple pathway: consultation at the Hilo clinic or by telehealth; imaging done on-island; then surgery scheduled where it serves you best — most routine hip and knee replacements on-island, as same-day Mako robotic surgery at Hilo Community Surgery Center, and complex cases and most revisions at a hospital on O‘ahu via one planned trip. Distance stopped being a reason to settle for less.