How digital tools can help us to beat the surgical backlog
Despite the difficulties that COVID-19 has brought, I’ve been really impressed with how surgical societies have managed to innovate when it comes to holding their annual meetings and congresses.
The British Orthopaedic Association (BOA) held its own Annual Congress last week, and despite being virtual, I was pleased to see how much content there was on offer. It’s impressive how quickly events like these have moved across to digital platforms, and with great success.
And there’s an irony that “digital healthcare” was one of the most prominent topics on the BOA agenda.
Of course, the coronavirus pandemic has pushed our health sector towards digital initiatives, such as video-calling for consultant-led clinics. And many of our own field representatives at DePuy Synthes are supporting surgical teams virtually too.
But there are greater moves towards digital technology in the surgical setting that were coming long before COVID-19. In fact, many of these digital tools will be essential, as the NHS attempts to increase its efficiency, and reduce rapidly-expanding surgical waiting lists.
At a BOA session last week, Professor Heiko Graichen from Germany gave a presentation about digitalisation – focused on digital workflow tools and Computer-Assisted-Surgery (CAS).
Prof Graichen’s team use a software that we produce at Johnson & Johnson Medical Devices Companies, called SPI – Surgical Process Institute. It guides surgical teams through a procedure through a step-by-step process, using computerised screens in theatre .
The idea is that everyone in the operating room knows what step is happening next, to improve the efficiency and workflow. And it’s a fantastic example of digital innovation improving patient care, reducing variability and increasing the speed of an operation.
“Procedures get faster. Two years on, we are now 20% faster with that surgery”, Prof Graichen told the BOA Annual Congress.
“It’s not that you are sawing faster. It’s saving you time throughout the whole procedure."
"The interaction of the team is better. The handover time from nurse to doctor is faster. The stress for the team is coming down. You generate your OR report automatically, so there is no need for sitting in a separate room writing up a report."
And SPI is one technology that we’re encouraging hospitals in the UK to take advantage of – and they are already doing so. During the height of the coronavirus pandemic, as patients moved into hospitals that were less familiar with certain trauma procedures, SPI was used to ensure the operations went without an issue.
By the end of the year, there will be more than 20 hospitals here that are choreographing their operating rooms with SPI.
The technology is obviously no substitute for the skills of the surgeon, of course.
“The machine is not doing your job,” stressed Prof Graichen, reassuring attendees at the BOA Congress. “You still have to know what the data means. And you have to place the implant in the position that is best for your patient.”
However, it’s clear that time-saving digital tools like SPI will be essential for the healthcare system, as it attempts to catch up with surgical waiting lists that have grown in the last six months.
Chief Executive Officer at TCC-CASEMIX Limited and The Conclude Consultancy Limited
4 年Absolutely agree that raising operating theatres productivity is a ‘must have’ to address the huge backlog. Of course new medical devices and SPI are part of the solution. However we need to recognise the ‘elephant in the room’ so to speak - this is that the vast majority of theatre planning is based on the mean duration of patient in - patient out. In other words - half the time the duration is under the mean and half the time over it. This is not a way to run a sophisticated service. The ‘must-have’ is to achieve far better predictability because a) we reduce the risk of cancelled operations, b) we lessen the risk of theatres standing idle (including all those expensive medical devices) and most importantly we increase the number of procedures in a theatre list. So how do we do that? In TCC- CASEMIX we have statistically analysed all the patient and surgeon risk factors that impact surgical duration and by this means created algorithms for theatre planning that profile every possible combination of patient/ surgeon risk profiles to produce statistically reliable forecasts for every list in each specialty. To do so we have been creating a whole new dataset through real-time data acquisition in the operating theatre.
Orthopaedics Lead North Greece
4 年Dear Mr . Dalton !! It is great to have your thoughts and your experience !! Thanks for sharing !!
Director Capital and Digital Surgery, Depuy Synthes, Mid-Sized Markets at Johnson & Johnson
4 年Thanks for sharing Andrew, excellent article