Bariatric Partners strives to achieve quality outcomes for obese patients who seek to improve their health and enhance their lives through bariatric surgery. Our physician partners share this commitment and work with us to enable quality care and outcomes.

By creating a focused, dedicated approach to laparoscopic adjustable banding, patients receive care in an environment that supports their unique needs. The obese population has been referred to as the “last systemically discriminated upon group"[6].  The environment of care at Bariatric Partners' Journey Lite facilities eliminates this discrimination and allows patients to better achieve and sustain their targeted weight loss.

In collaboration with physician partners, Bariatic Partners designs the physical environment to enhance the surgical experience for the obese patient, as well as to develop and implement comprehensive programs to address the full spectrum of pre-operative and post-operative patient needs.

Bariatric Partners focuses exclusively on working with leading physicians to create and operate surgery centers designed to meet the special needs of obese patients. Our clinical philosophy is patient-centered and care-driven, thus creating the greatest opportunity for achieving and sustaining targeted weight loss.

Along with our partner physicians, everything we do is motivated by a desire to produce positive outcomes for the patients served in our facilities. This includes achieving targeted weight loss that may be realistically sustained over time and providing ongoing support groups to assist in the myriad of life issues dealt with by these patients. Our objective is to assist our patients in achieving their goals in an efficient manner that results in high patient satisfaction.

LAGB requires advanced laparoscopic surgical skills. Surgeons credentialed at Bariatric Partners’ Journey Lite facilities must possess qualifications that indicate sufficient experience and exposure to the discipline’s cognitive and technical demands to safely perform laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding. In addition, surgeons must demonstrate a commitment to the long-term care and management of patients receiving the band. Bariatric Partners’ Journey Lite surgery centers are state licensed, Medicare certified, and managed and developed to enable compliance with future opportunities to become certified as bariatric Centers of Excellence and to meet other outside accreditation standards.

We seek to work with bariatric surgeons who have demonstrated a commitment to bariatrics and who are experienced with laparoscopic bariatric procedures. Our belief, supported by existing data, is that more experienced surgeons have lower complication rates and better outcomes than less experienced surgeons. We endeavor to bring the benefit of greater experience to obese patients through our partner physicians.

If you are an experienced bariatric surgeon that specializes in the laparoscopic surgical approach and are interested in learning more about opportunities to perform laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding within your community, please call our Chief Development Officer, Joseph "Woody" Hubbard, at 800-338-2724, ext. 224.

Click here to view the LAGB procedure animation video

"Positive outcomes in super obese patients have led some to suggest that laparoscopic adjustable gastric band (LAGB) should be the preferred initial procedure for all morbidly obese patients, with more complex gastrointestinal procedures reserved for weight loss failures only."[8]

Bariatric Partners' Journey Lite facilities are dedicated to the LAGB and to long-term patient care and success.

The principal advantage of LAGB is safety. There are two types of bariatric surgery: (1) malabsorptive and (2) restrictive. The malabsorptive surgical techniques are associated with a higher incidence of adverse surgical outcomes. These malabsorptive types of surgery include gastric bypass Roux-en-Y, duodenal switch and other biliopancreatic diversion procedures (which are done laparoscopically by some surgeons).

Laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding is the restrictive type of surgery in which an adjustable silicone band is placed around the upper portion of the stomach; it is adjusted over time to decrease the amount of food that can be eaten, and affords patients the feeling of satiety.

The LAGB is clearly different from more invasive surgical procedures like the gastric bypass in that it does not require the division of any portion of the stomach or intestinal tract. As such, the LAGB is not associated with the same types of complications as the malabsorptive procedures. Studies of the LAGB indicate that “complications occur in a very small percent of the cases;” LAGB is “very safe and effective;” LAGB is “safe and standardized;” LAGB has “an acceptably low complication rate.” LAGB has “revolutionized surgical treatment” of morbid obesity with “rare early post-operative complications."[9]

The risks inherent in operating on the morbidly obese are mitigated in LAGB by adherence to strict patient selection guidelines. Patients with pre-existing cardiac disease and sleep apnea requiring CPAP are eliminated. Typically, patients with a BMI of >50 are eliminated.[10]

To date, the largest meta-analysis of the literature comparing bariatric procedures found that adjustable gastric banding had the lowest complication rate of all procedures. “The Australian Safety and Efficacy Register of New Interventional Procedures-Surgical (ASERNIP-S), in a systematic review of the work literature of LAGB, found an early mortality rate of 0.05% or 1:2000, which is 1/10 the mortality of Roux-en-Y gastric bypass and 1/6 the mortality of vertical banded gastroplasty.[11]  The literature reports very few perioperative complications. The predominant post-operative complication is pouch dilation which is easily corrected post-operatively and poses no immediate threat to the patient.