From the April 2017 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
By James Laskaris
With the rapid growth in recent years of new operating room and sterile service building projects has come an increase in technology buying. The focus, of course, is to provide optimum patient care with optimum efficiency — a key to staying competitive. What is behind this buying pattern? One factor is an increase in volume. Baby boomers have reached the age where they require surgery more often. Much of this investment in new technology is focused on infection control, minimally invasive surgery and improving outcomes with quicker recovery and a shorter length of stay.
Specialized OR tables
Specialized OR tables target anterior hip replacement and high-end spinal procedures. These are designed to assist the physician in performing less-invasive procedures. Anterior hip replacement is a tissue-sparing approach that allows the surgeon to work around major muscles as opposed to cutting them. This results in sparing healthy tissue and speeding recovery time.
Implants are being designed to last longer, and with the added accuracy of using a computer or a robot to assist with the precision of the procedure, they offer the promise of extending the life of the implant. While robotic surgeries, image-guided computer systems and manual techniques are all treatment options for patients in the orthopedic market, they vary in terms of durability, most notably in relation to implant longevity. The current level of implant technology offers the potential for implants to last more than 15 years, with newer technology extending this to more than 20 years.
However, even with new technology, the life expectancy of implants is limited by the accuracy of their alignment. Studies have found that alignment errors greater than 3 percent in artificial knee procedures are associated with implant failures. Conventional manual techniques had an almost 32 percent chance of a greater-than-3-percent misalignment, while this number was 9 percent in cases when an image-guided computer system was used. In contrast, surgical orthopedic robots were able to achieve consistent alignment within 1.6 degrees. This translates to a longer-lasting procedure, opening the market to younger patients.
Imaging
Just when we thought video surgical imaging had reached its peak, vendors are now offering 4K imaging technology. 4K resolution offers 4,000 pixels or dots per line, which translates to four times the resolution of current HD systems. This assists surgeons to better distinguish between pathologies, allowing for new procedures to be performed safely in a minimally invasive format.
