With 206 bones and 600-plus muscles in the body, painful musculoskeletal conditions are all too common. Knee, hip, and shoulder joints wear out. Bones fracture. Spinal problems can lead to a host of painful conditions. Whether we are staying active, enjoying sports, or navigating the demands of everyday life, our bones, muscles, and tendons are constantly at work, and sometimes need specialized care.

Thanks to a strategic collaboration between Jupiter Medical Center (JMC) and Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS), area residents have access to treatment for highly complex orthopedic conditions that previously required traveling to a big-city academic medical center.

Residents of Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast have come to rely on the nationally acclaimed musculoskeletal care available at Jupiter Medical Center. JMC has been recognized as one of the nation’s “Best Hospitals for Orthopedic Surgery” for the past two years by Money magazine.

Additionally, Healthgrades, an online platform that rates U.S. doctors and hospitals, cited Jupiter Medical Center as one of “America’s 100 Best Hospitals for Joint Replacement.” JMC also has been recognized for 15 years with an “A” Hospital Safety Grade from The Leapfrog Group, an independent national nonprofit watchdog for patient safety and clinical excellence.

This new collaboration connects JMC and its highly respected orthopedic program with HSS, ranked No. 1 in orthopedics globally for 16 straight years by U.S. News & World Report.

“It’s an opportunity for us to take the orthopedic care we provide—whether it’s around joint replacements, or sports medicine, or spine surgery—to an even higher level,” says Dr. Amit Rastogi, president and CEO of Jupiter Medical Center. “HSS is the most respected academic medical center in musculoskeletal health. That reputation for excellence has been built on innovation and outcomes, whether it’s surgery, rehabilitation, or other types of therapies.”

OPTIMAL TIMING

For patients, this alliance means access to HSS orthopedic surgeons and treatment protocols without leaving the region. They can receive diagnosis, surgery, rehabilitation, and follow-up care in Jupiter, while benefiting from HSS’s innovative expertise and advanced surgical techniques.

HSS board-certified physicians now perform surgeries at Jupiter Medical Center’s Johnny and Terry Gray Surgical Institute, which contains 16 expansive smart operating rooms and advanced surgical technology. The surgical institute, which opened in 2024, features operating rooms that are nearly twice the size of the original operating rooms, providing space for the growing array of orthopedic robotic technologies used by the surgical teams.

In addition, within the new five-story Tim and Jayne Donahue Patient Care Tower, two floors are devoted solely to orthopedics, with postoperative beds and on-site rehabilitation centers.

“Musculoskeletal [treatment] is one of the biggest spends in health care,” says Dr. Bryan Kelly, president and CEO of Hospital for Special Surgery, which is based in New York City. In the United States, he says, “treatment amounts to $350 billion to $400 billion, plus when you add the indirect expenses of lost labor and lost time, that can rise to $1 trillion.

“We believe musculoskeletal care is extremely important and delivering it in additional locations at the highest quality is something we are committed to,” Kelly says. “The best way to do it is to find the optimal partner who is deeply rooted in the community to allow us to bring in our expertise and clinical pathways and deepen their patient relationships. JMC is an outstanding hospital with a fantastic leader in Dr. Amit Rastogi. We have similar values and commitment to high quality.”

Since the hospital opened in 1979, Jupiter’s population has increased by 500 percent—from fewer than 10,000 people to nearly 63,000 today. In that same period, Palm Beach County’s population nearly tripled, from 550,900 to 1.57 million.

“As part of this partnership, patients will be getting the same cutting-edge, innovative treatment that they would receive at HSS in New York City,” Rastogi says. “Our focus is on providing the best care, close to home. There’s no time that any of us are as vulnerable as when we’re sick. You want to be near the comfort of home and have access to world class healthcare.”

Kelly says, “It’s a really exciting opportunity. The only way a partnership works is with the right people. We’ve been fortunate enough to connect with Amit and his team at JMC.”

The collaboration “is off to a great start,” says Rastogi.

A SEAMLESS SETTING

With JMC’s patient-focused culture and deep commitment to excellent outcomes, Rastogi says the HSS physicians are a natural fi t. “Both organizations share a culture of high performance around quality, safety and patient experience,” he says.

The HSS team brings with it “innovative and less-invasive surgical techniques, and minimally invasive procedures that are simpler for patients to recover from,” says Kelly. “Our surgical approaches have developed over many years. Those types of protocols are much of the reason HSS has the lowest readmission rates and significantly lower infection and complications rates. Those are what we want to bring to Jupiter.”

Kelly describes the structure as a “dedicated orthopedic environment. Everyone is doing the same thing every day. It makes the results better. There’s a well-established relationship between volume and outcomes.”

This setup “creates a seamless, fully coordinated pathway,” Kelly says. “Surgery, recovery, and rehab all happen in one orthopedic setting. It’s the same people, protocols, and philosophy. The result is earlier mobilization, faster recovery, and fewer complications for patients. It’s not just the surgeon, but you’re creating an ecosystem” that results in improved outcomes.

That treatment, carried out by a coordinated team of providers, has earned both hospitals high praise and support.

Kelly says that while having the reputation as the world’s best orthopedic “is nice, the biggest risk is becoming complacent about it. We are happy to be in that position but not satisfied with it. We always want to improve.”

HSS is known for innovations such as the use of regional anesthesia, rather than general anesthesia, for orthopedic surgeries. Using targeted blocks on specific nerves allows patients to remain comfortable during and after surgery. The result: fewer blood clots, less surgical bleeding, post-operative pain, and infection, and a dramatic decline in the need for opioids.

It’s also credited with developing the first modern total knee replacement and leads the way in integrating robotics and real-time computer navigation to maximize precision and accommodate individual anatomies.

JMC has been growing services on its own as well. It was the first Florida hospital to introduce the FDA-approved MISHA Knee System, the first implantable shock absorber, designed to reduce the load on the knee joint, preserve function, reduce pain, and, ideally, delay the need for a full knee replacement.

Its CORI Robotic-Assisted Surgical System improves the precision and accuracy of joint replacement while eliminating the need for computerized tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans. The Mako SmartRobotics system is used for knee and hip replacements, allowing surgeons to create 3D models of a patient’s unique bone structure, allowing for greater precision, longer-lasting results, less postoperative pain, and swifter recovery.

The VELYS Robotic-Assisted Solution enhances total knee arthroplasty (replacement) by using real-time data during surgery to improve accuracy and precision.

When the Tim and Jayne Donahue Patient Care Tower opened in January 2026, the larger winter population brought an upsurge in patients, but Rastogi attributes high demand to more than that. “As our brand—and our reputation for world-class quality—grows, and as people see that we’ve expanded our capacity while remaining focused on patient experience, we’ve had even more patients from across the region coming to JMC for their care,” Rastogi says.

“We as an organization are excited about what we are building with JMC,” says Kelly. “I think it’s the future of health care, a new way to elevate care in various settings. Jupiter Medical Center is the perfect partner for us, and we are excited to develop something exceptional with them.