Healthcare giant Smith & Nephew has acquired two software assets that fit with its low-cost, rep-free Syncera™ orthopaedic supply chain model for hospitals and ambulatory surgery centres (ASCs).
Background
It’s not yet a year since Smith & Nephew launched its Syncera program, as we reported at the time. The concept was that by offering a package with lower built-in support the company would tap into what the company had identified as 5-10 percent of U.S. hospitals. The main cost-exclusion was to cut down on accompanied procedures, but the obvious consequence of that was always likely to be that something was missing. It seems the company worked out pretty quickly what it needed to do, and has now acquired two applications from S2 Interactive, a surgical software development company in a deal, details of which haven’t been disclosed.
Arthroplasty surgery can involve the use of as many as 20 trays holding a total of 200 or more instruments, all of which need be counted, cleaned, inspected, assembled and sterilized before every surgery. In practice, however, a surgeon may only use a small number of these instruments during the surgery. The newly acquired applications, Virtual Backtable® and TrayTouch®, allow hospital and ASC customers to access, analyse and manage real-time data related to instrument utilisation during surgery. This data allows central processing and operating room (OR) administrators to identify the instruments an individual surgeon uses during a specific procedure, assemble, prepare and streamline the instrument trays accordingly, and train the OR staff using interactive, visual layouts of each tray.
By using the learning management modules within these new applications, it is expected that a nurse or scrub technician setting up for surgery can quickly train themselves on each surgeon’s preferences, identify the instrument sequence and quickly locate every instrument within the tray. So the potential is for things to be better than they were under the supported regime..certainly better than the old dog-eared book that used to include set-up and preference information.
Company comments
“As operating rooms continue to look for ways to improve efficiency and trim costs, better instrument management becomes vital,” says Stuart Morris-Hipkins, SVP and General Manager of Syncera. “By organising the instrument trays and the OR equipment based on the surgical sequence and the instrument usage of each surgeon, a hospital can significantly reduce the overall costs associated with instrument prep and assembly without sacrificing patient care.”
Source: PR Newswire
published: May 6, 2015 in: Mergers and Acquisitions, Orthopaedics, Smith & Nephew