Innovative Tech Helps Surgeons 'See' What They're Doing

Healthcare providers are using AR and VR technology to improve surgical outcomes. Is it working?

While the healthcare industry is still waiting for the Star Trek tricorder, some doctors are apparently now using x-ray glasses.

That’s the news out of New Jersey, where two neurosurgeons have performed successful spinal surgeries using an FDA-cleared AR technology that allows them to “see” a patient’s anatomy during the procedure.

“Augmented reality allows us to advance what we can see inside the spine with pinpoint accuracy to apply various forms of instrumentation in the least invasive way,” Roy Vingan, MD, co-founder of New Jersey Brain and Spine (NJBS), said in a press release. “It is a navigation tool that gives us information in the operating room that is deeper than an x-ray.”

 "It's kind of a wow moment, like looking through a telescope and seeing the stars,” he added. “Suddenly, the world is open to you in a different way."

[Also read: Is Healthcare Moving Toward a 3D EHR?]

AR and VR (virtual reality) technology have been making slow and steady progress into healthcare, with benefits for patients as well as providers. Health systems and hospitals are experimenting with the technology as a decision support tool, giving clinicians a new  and often far more detailed look at what they’re examining.

That’s especially true in spinal surgeries, where clinicians have been using AR and VR for some time.

At NJBS, Vingan and Patrick Roth, MD, a neurosurgeon and co-founder, are using the Augmedics xvision Spine System, which uses a transparent near-eye-display headset to show the position of surgical tools superimposed over a patient’s CT data. That image is viewed by the surgeon through a headset during surgery.

NJBS surgeons have used the technology on more than 40 surgeries over the past half-year, while Augmedics says their technology has been used to help treat more than 6,500 patients in 24 states. Nationally, dozens of health systems, including the Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins, and UConn Health are using the technology in surgeries, mostly since 2019 or 2020.

Advocates say the technology improves minimally invasive surgeries by allowing surgeons to more accurately guide their instruments, as well as any implants. This enables more precise surgeries, smaller incisions, and better clinical outcomes, including less pain and shorter recovery time for patients.

It’s also a marketing tool. Alongside innovative technology like surgical robots, health systems and hospitals are using AR/VR capabilities as a means of attracting new surgeons at a time when workforce shortages are common and top talent is hard to attract.

"We believe that one of the strengths of our practice is that the surgeons have the flexibility to contextualize, improvise, and think outside of the box,” Roth said in the press release. “We can lean in to advances and provide the very best care available."