Can robotics, AI, and digital intelligence provide the much-needed impetus to better the delivery of healthcare and its outcomes? The integration of technology into medical practices offers many avenues for solutions as healthcare systems confront a combination of staffing shortages, rising costs, and global challenges.
Intuitive picture a future where robotics, AI, machine learning, and visualization tools assist surgeons, physicians, and care teams. No single technology can solve systemic issues, but innovations in robotic-assisted surgery are poised to change surgical medicine. Digital intelligence is being incorporated into robotic systems seamlessly, from improving surgical training through data insights to augmenting surgeon capabilities.
Training Tomorrow’s Surgeons
For centuries now, surgical education has pursued the “see one, do one, teach one” philosophy. While invaluable, this commonplace surgical training model relies mainly on experienced mentors, which creates a significant degree of variability in training. In parallel to traditional settings, Intuitive is offering cloud-based learning, case proctoring remotely, simulations, and pre-operative planning tools to complement time-honored training methods. Such innovations will quicken training considerably, enabling more surgeons to perform minimally invasive robotic surgery.
Intuitive utilizes AI/ML technology to analyze data from over 10 million da Vinci system procedures, offering insights that help surgeons adapt techniques in varying clinical scenarios and improve consistency with respect to patient outcomes.
Advancing Surgical Visualization
Intuitive’s da Vinci joins together immersive 3DHD imaging to offer the surgeon a magnified view with depth perception for increased precision. Firefly near-infrared fluorescence technology is another visualization-enhancing modality aiding the surgeon to visualize vessels and perfusion of tissue.
Future designs will improve image quality and fluorescent agents that bind to specific anatomies like the ureter or cancerous tissues. These advances allow surgeons to minimize complications and increase accuracy.
Enhancing Surgical Capabilities
Robotic surgery is embarking on a transformation with intelligence tools that augment surgical precision. An example of that is Intuitive’s SureForm stapler, which adjusts tissue thickness for staple formation in real-time. With a measurement speed of more than 1,000 times a second, it ensures a highly consistent staple line, thus minimizing further tissue injury.
Future studies at Intuitive will focus more on sensory enhancement in surgical instruments. In the continuing march of technology, innovations in hardware, software, and digital intelligence will further enhance surgical skills toward ensuring reproducible and optimal patient outcomes.
Redefining Standards of Care
Robotic-assisted surgeries have changed the way surgery is performed in hospitals; surgeries like prostatectomies have gone from open surgery to being performed with robotic techniques. With advancing technology, robotic surgeries will set new patient care standards, being more effective, precise, and consistent in surgical outcomes.
