HP Innovation Journal Issue 13: Winter 2019 | Page 50

TRANSFORMING HEALTHCARE
“Technologies like robotics, VR and 3D printing are making
once complex, high-risk surgeries now commonplace and
standard,” says Daniel Colling, HP’s global lead of clinical
workflow and healthcare solutions. “The outcomes of this
technology provide patients a lower risk of infection during
and post-surgery, less time recovering, and better health
outcomes. These advances are about patient quality of life.”
Digital transformation sits at the heart of this new era.
Smart sensors, instruments, and machines can generate
volumes of patient data, from advanced imaging to vitals
monitoring. These are the raw materials that robots and
cutting-edge tools like virtual reality and surgical naviga-
tion systems can use to speed procedures and make them
more accurate.
Also driving this new era forward: A global shift toward
value-based healthcare that moves away from the old fee-
for-service model to one that pays doctors and hospitals
based on patient health outcomes.
Colling points to once-complicated, time-consuming pro-
cedures like an appendectomy or coronary artery bypass
graft surgery (CABG) to illustrate how far new technolo-
gies are pushing healthcare.
“Cardiothoracic surgeons used to have to perform large
incisions and crack open the entire sternum to access the
heart,” he says. “Now it can be done with minimal inva-
sion. That’s huge.”
He sees a near future in which doctors 3D print anatomi-
cal models to plan procedures and educate patients about
what will be done to them, then go into VR to simulate
important steps of the operation, and, finally, use robots to
perform the procedure with pinpoint accuracy.
ROBOTS AND AI BECOME SURGEONS’
INDISPENSABLE TOOLS
About a dozen robots built for the OR already assist with
hip and knee surgeries and specialized procedures like
spinal, abdominal, or laparoscopic surgeries. Intuitive
Surgical’s da Vinci robotic system has been in operation
for almost two decades and has performed more than six
million colorectal, thoracic, and other minimally invasive
operations where major surgeries used to be required.
While robots in the OR are not new, they will soon help
doctors reach patients who otherwise wouldn’t benefit
from them, thanks to the robust and hyperfast 5G cellular
networks that are coming. As just one example, remote
surgeons will be able to use robots as their eyes and hands
in disaster zones and distant clinics.
And the field is about to explode with new models designed
to operate on eyes, hearts, and brains, according to Roger
Smith, the CTO of Orlando, Florida’s AdventHealth Nich-
olson Center, which trains more than 100 surgeons a year
to use robotic systems.
“Some 40 companies are making robots that we expect
to see on the market in the next five years,” Smith says.
“More surgeons will be adopting robotic assistance because
they’re recognizing this is the next generation of tools to
help them do their job better.”
Smith also expects artificial intelligence to play a signifi-
cant role in robotic and traditional surgeries. For example,
AI systems could analyze thousands of hours of surgical
videos to develop custom procedure planning. When com-
bined with augmented reality, computer vision-equipped
AI could detect anatomical structures such as major
nerves and alert surgeons nearing them to keep their cut-
ting instruments away.
“Surgeons will be adopting robotic assistance because
they’re recognizing this is the next generation of tools
to help them do their job better.”
—ROGER SMITH
CTO of AdventHealth Nicholson Center
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HP Innovation Journal Issue 13