When trained to scan instruments properly, you maintain a comprehensive understanding of where you are and what is happening. The same is true of this new surgical technology. It allows you to keep “flying the plane,” or operating, instead of having to stop the surgery, look over at your scans and simulations, and then start operating again.
In the following video Dr. Bederson describes the advantages of the technology and how it may benefit both physicians and their patients:
HCB News: So anything you can do to eliminate unnecessary movement is pivotal?
JB: That’s right. When a neurosurgeon settles in on the arm rest pad for a procedure, you are required to remain in a “yogic” position for three to four hours at a time.
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So the foot pedals and the toggle switches on the new system contribute to that. The left foot pedal has about 16 different switches and a joy stick that controls the direction, zoom and depth the microscope. Your right foot operates four or five different controls. Of course, each hand does things and even your mouth controls something.
You have to be ready to activate all of those with all of your limbs at any moment, otherwise you lose valuable seconds. This is why access to information through the augmented eyepiece is important. You are already going on all four burners so if you have to stop in order to consider “outside” information and then return and regain situational awareness - going back and forth between the “GPS map” and what you are doing - it is exhausting and distracting.
HCB News: Since you have been involved in the development of this technology, what can you say about its health care business prospects?
JB: With the craze of Pokeman Go and other games like Oculus we are seeing a growing awareness of the practical application of virtual and augmented realities. What we are doing in the operation room is augmentation. That is clearly becoming mainstream.
Ten or fifteen years ago, when surgical navigation was just coming into the field, you had to be a devotee and a real believer to make it work. But it rapidly permeated the field and now it is a standard of care and you cannot imagine doing many of our procedures without it.
Augmented reality, automation, and the digital operating room are with us. Not everyone is going to be able to have it initially, but in my opinion, everyone is going to have it in a very short time. This is quickly going to become a standard of care.
