SAVE - Surgery: Assess / Validate / Expand

Nabil Simaan (Vanderbilt) and his coinvestigators, Michael Miga, Soheil Kolouri, Jie Ying Wu, and Kamran Idrees have developed a novel haptic trainer for teaching and evaluating laparoscopic surgical skills. Together with engineering and clinical collaborators Kyvia Pereira, Jon Heiselman, and Kauffmann Rondi they are moving the needle on accelerating skill acquisition and the objective assessment of surgical proficiencies.

Expanding access to safe surgery requires bold innovation—and Grendel Medical’s Laptitude is exactly that. By combining generative AI, intelligent game design, and affordable simulation tools, Laptitude is making high-quality laparoscopic training more accessible than ever before. This innovative system creates realistic, continually evolving scenarios that provide anatomic and pathologic variation, enabling trainees to acquire vital surgical experience at a fraction of the traditional cost. By lowering barriers to training, Laptitude has the potential to revolutionize how we prepare the next generation of surgeons and transform surgical skill acquisition. To achieve this, we are advancing next-generation training, assessment, and simulation technologies—solutions like Laptitude that accelerate learning, validate competency, and expand access to surgical education and skills development. This is the kind of transformative progress that will close the surgical gap. With the right innovations, we can achieve it. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/gKeEZcg6 #SurgicalTraining #AI #HealthcareInnovation #WellcomeLeap #GrendelMedical

SAVE has some exciting news to share: Grendel Games has won the prestigious iF Design award. https://lnkd.in/gZR68izf The Grendel Games team, led by Principal Investigator Jan-Jaap Severs, has developed accessible and affordable video game-based training tools for laparoscopic surgery, as part of the SAVE program. The game is realistic and entertaining and has real implications for future training of surgeons. It will launch next week at the #SAGES2025 meeting in Los Angeles. The special controllers help trainees develop the fine motor skills, dexterity, and eye-hand-tissue 3-dimensionality skills they need for target acquisition and manipulation during laparoscopy. The controller is compact and foldable, offering the opportunity for surgeons-in-training worldwide to engage in this novel training approach. The environment ranges from the fantastical to the realistic, enabling skills-building in a way that incentivizes repeat performance and advancement of skills. It also allows non-clinicians to try their hand at surgical skills and it may inspire those who might not otherwise consider surgery as a career to rethink their options. We look forward to the reaction by the surgical community!

SAVE teams travelled from 15 different countries to participate in the 4th?Principal Investigators meeting in Nairobi, Kenya. As we enter the third and final year of the program, our ambition only grows… ? Presenting Team Ssekitoleko: ? Robert Ssekitoleko?is the?Principal Investigator (PI)?from?Makerere University Biomedical Research Center (aka?MakBRC) who, along with fellow investigators?Brian Matovu?(MakBRC), @Tamara Fitzgerald (Duke Surgery), and?Jenna Mueller?(University of Maryland) have developed a novel, low-cost laparoscope for use in very resource constrained environments and hospitals. This builds on work they have been?developing?for several years, and they are now ready to move into human trials! ? This device will be manufactured in Uganda through a partnership with?Shishi International Limited?and its amazing cofounder?Sheillah Bagayana. The goal is to bring contextually appropriate laparoscopic equipment capabilities to Uganda and beyond. ? Learn more about the novel KeySuite laparoscopy device:?https://lnkd.in/gubthd-w

Next up: Sibel Health Steve Xu and his team from Sibel Health are leading the charge in cutting edge, medical-grade wearables for patient monitoring. They have moved beyond traditional vital signs and are poised to radically change the way clinicians evaluate physiology in real time using multimodal assessments. This work has the potential to change health outcomes for patients. Others are taking notice: Sibel has been awarded a $17.5M Gates Grant in collaboration with Ewen Harrison and his team at the University of Edinburgh and the NIHR Global Health Research Unit on Global Surgery. They were also selected to provide continuous wireless monitoring to patients in the capital region of Denmark. This includes installation in 1000+ hospital beds, with an estimated purchase value of $100M+ over the next ten years. Learn more about the Gates Award: https://lnkd.in/gVj6krkS Learn more about the capital region of Denmark award: https://lnkd.in/g7rxBgjw

SAVE teams have travelled from around the world to present updates at the 4th Principal Investigators meeting in Nairobi, Kenya. Our teams represent over 200 investigators and researchers from 16 different countries across 21 time zones. We are wrapping up our second year of work and have made enormous progress. SAVE would like to introduce performer teams and provide some insights into their work. First up: Team Yeung-Levy Serena Yeung (Stanford University) and her co-investigators, Jeff Jopling (Johns Hopkins) and Teodor Grantcharov (Stanford), are working on novel mechanisms for evaluating technical performance during laparoscopy using video analysis. Serena and her colleagues recently won top prize in the Critical View of Safety Challenge, hosted by Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons (SAGES)! Novel computer vision approaches could radically advance surgical performance and safety. Learn more about the top prize: https://lnkd.in/gy5ncd4r Learn more about the Critical View of Safety Challenge: https://lnkd.in/gqUCxGGj

Lack of access to essential surgery results in 1.5 million deaths per year. This is equivalent to the number of deaths from HIV, malaria, multi-drug resistant TB, and complications from pregnancy — combined. We need a fundamental change. Surgery: Assess / Validate / Expand (SAVE) is a $50M program with the goal of doubling the number of surgical providers trained each year so as to create an additional 100,000 within a decade. This is where those researchers continue to interact about their work. Follow this page to see their progress, publications, event announcements, and transitions. https://lnkd.in/evHg-Cgd