GALEN Galen Robotics Platform
Expanding the limits of a surgeon’s hand by making minimally invasive interventions safer, faster and more precise.
BUSINESS MODEL
Digital Surgery as a Service
Today’s surgical robots are very expensive pieces of equipment requiring a capital expenditure that can limit a hospital’s ability to afford one. Creating a have and have-not condition, these surgical robots result in business dynamics that have the potential to influence medical decisions. For example, the decision to refer some procedures to a larger hospital. The price of such large capital purchases also puts more pressure on equipment utilization to cost-justify.
Rethinking the way, surgical robots are procured today can substantially influence the ability of hospitals to acquire one, assist surgeons with minimally invasive surgery, and improve patient satisfaction.
Today’s cloud-based computing and infrastructures have shifted to more of a pay-as-you-go model and offering “everything-as-a-service.” Businesses today no longer must purchase expensive computer equipment to host enterprise applications, such as those for finance and accounting, customer relationship management, or data analytics.
This same dynamic could apply to surgical robots. Of course, there is real hardware, but what if we could charge per patient usage pricing models with no capital expense outlay? What if, a from-the-ground-up design made surgical robots inherently less expensive to produce? What if, maintenance was also factored into usage, thereby lowering fixed costs, and reducing the need for hospitals to have trained personnel? What if the robots were designed for lowing surgical procedural costs to begin with?
Device manufacturers recoup their costs through increased use of their systems. In addition, the choices for the healthcare sector will no longer be limited to “one price fits all” offerings. Each case can be priced out according to what the surgeon chooses to utilize.
Surgery-as-a-Service models democratize access to advanced technologies among healthcare providers. Local, community hospitals and Ambulatory Surgery Centers can have access to the latest equipment and newest technologies.
TECHNOLOGYDesign Philosophy
Expanding the limits of a surgeon’s hand by making minimally invasive interventions safer, faster and more precise.
Tools Stabilization
Design can broaden the tasks a robot is suitable to address and the value it brings to procedures. A robot designed as a 3rd hand surgical assistant to supplement surgical skills, it could help provide tool stabilization, offset fatigue for long procedures, and ultimately provide for hands-free guidance.
Memory Path And Control
The more patient’s robots can take out of open surgery and into computer-aided minimally invasive procedures, the better for patients and practitioners. A robot could memorize the path, such as a biopsy needle entering the brain, and movements surgeons make, repeating these to avoid structures.
Instrument Agnostic
Surgical robots could be designed to accommodate an array of different tools, implants, scopes, or cameras. Tools could be interchangeable, allowing greater flexibility and versatility within each procedure using different tools for different procedures all the while using the same robot.
APPLICATIONS
Our Vision
Technology solutions that enable minimally invasive surgery through improved ergonomics, new integrated technologies, larger surgeon populations, and increase provider and patient satisfaction.
Data Analytics / AI
Rethinking surgical robot design could also add new dimensions to it. What if one considered a robot to be a perfect receptacle for surgical data? What if a robot that plays an assistive or augmentative role could capture the surgeon’s experienced hand movements? These could be gathered from many surgeons and procedures to provide “best practice” guidance to other surgeons while providing potential suggestions in real-time. Such a data collection of talent could help raise the level of proficiency for all surgeons and help to continually increase their effectiveness.
AR / VR
It might also be possible that the collective knowledge could be effective for training new surgical residents. Rather than traditional teaching methods of observing surgeons at work as well as critiquing residents in the operating room or surgical suite, residents could learn in the most hands-on way possible.
Instrument Guidance
For years, surgical robots have been great data collectors, able to capture the exact interactions between surgeon and patient in a way nothing else can. Mining this data will produce two extraordinary benefits. First, the most successful hand movements and procedural steps and judgment can be captured and offered to other surgeons as recommendations or assistance to up-level surgical skills.