GALEN The Galen 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 augmentation systems require substantial capital expenditures that can stress the resources of a hospital seeking to provide cutting-edge service to their patients. These acquisition structures 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 impact of such large capital purchases also puts more pressure on equipment utilization to justify the costs involved in individual procedures.
Today’s cloud-based computing and infrastructure have shifted to prioritize cost-effective pay-as-you-go models 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. Using the same strategies to rethink the way surgical platforms are procured can substantially influence the ability of hospitals to acquire novel technology, assist practitioners with minimally invasive surgery, and improve patient satisfaction.
This same dynamic could apply to surgical robots. What if we could overcome the limitations of physical hardware by developing per patient usage pricing models with no capital expense outlay? What if a 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?
Under such a structure, 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 surgical centers (ASCs) 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.
Tool Stabilization
Design can broaden the tasks a surgical assistant is suitable to address and the value it brings to procedures. A platform designed as a third hand to supplement surgical skills can help provide tool stabilization, offset fatigue for long procedures, and ultimately provide hands-free guidance.
Memory Path And Control
The more patients assistive devices can take out of open surgery and into computer-aided minimally invasive procedures, the better for both patients and practitioners. A support device can memorize the entry path, such as a biopsy needle entering the brain, and movements surgeons make, repeating these to avoid damaging structures.
Instrument Agnosticism
Surgical platforms could be designed to accommodate an array of different tools, implants, scopes, or cameras. Tools can be interchangeable, allowing greater flexibility and versatility within each procedure using different tools for different procedures all the while using the same platform.
APPLICATIONS
Our Vision
Technology solutions that enable minimally invasive surgery through improved ergonomics, new integrated technologies, larger surgeon populations, and increased provider and patient satisfaction.
Data Analytics / AI
Rethinking surgical platform design could also add new dimensions to data processing. What if one considered a robot to be a perfect receptacle for surgical data? What if a system 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 repository could help raise the level of proficiency for all surgeons and help to continually increase their effectiveness.
AR / VR
The collective knowledge associated with updated data management could be effective for training inexperienced 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 – with real-time comparisons to successful surgeons.
Instrument Guidance
For years, surgical platforms have been excellent data collectors, able to capture the exact interactions between surgeon and patient in a way no other system can. Mining this data can produce two extraordinary benefits; the most successful hand movements combined with procedural steps and judgment can be captured and offered to other surgeons as recommendations to sharpen surgical skills.