Michael Barbella, Managing Editor11.22.23
Was it a hunch? Insight? Incredible perspicacity?
Perhaps a mix of all three?
Or, possibly none of the above. Maybe it was nothing more than simple receptivity that led Cody C. Wyles, M.D., to recognize the remarkable potential of artificial intelligence (AI) within healthcare.
Maybe it was that open-mindedness that prompted Wyles—an internationally recognized hip and knee reconstruction surgeon—to verse himself in data and computer science, and form a small AI research team at the Mayo Clinic several years ago.
“It started with two or three of us meeting on nights and weekends to do proof-of-concept studies,” Wyles told a Clinic news team this past spring. “Now, we have an orthopedic artificial intelligence lab with eight surgeons, four data scientists, radiologists, and a lab manager.”
And a director—Wyles. His Orthopedic Surgery Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at Mayo Clinic is developing orthopedic surgery-focused AI solutions designed to improve both provider proficiency and patient care. Wyles has found AI to be a particularly helpful tool for radiologists, as it can effectively annotate physical features, monitor implant positioning, and predict risk from X-rays. The technology also has proven effective in processing language—Wyles’ team has used it to extract data in free-text form from typed or dictated clinical notes, and search for potential complications to patients’ cases (i.e., a draining wound).
“AI allows us to answer questions in new ways and offers insights into problems we’ve plateaued in trying to solve for many years,” noted Wyles, an assistant professor of Orthopedic Surgery and Clinical Anatomy, and senior associate consultant of Adult Hip and Knee Reconstruction at the Mayo Clinic. “It allows us to treat our patients in a more personalized way. We are new to this—our lab and its efforts have been ongoing for three years—but we have a big team and a ton of momentum. We want to lead in this space and are poised to do so with the necessary resources and infrastructure.”
Wyles’ team, however, faces fierce competition for that leadership role: AI has rapidly gained prominence in orthopedics over the last 12 months, capturing interest (and significant investment) amongst the industry’s diversified business base. Major implant manufacturers, startup software firms, and mid-size service providers are increasingly tapping the vast potential of artificial intelligence-driven technology to create powerful workflow tools for clinicians.
“We’re at the cusp of a boom of artificially intelligent orthopedic technologies,” Derek Shanahan, vice president of marketing for Denver-based digital health firm Exer, wrote in a January website post.
“With a growing tidal wave of patient data, a constant industry-wide drive to improve surgical accuracy, and higher post-surgical outcome expectations from patients, AI is sure to have a growing presence in orthopedics—both inside and outside the operating room.”
ORtelligence and Proprio helped AI expand its operating room footprint this year with their respective solutions. Seattle-based Proprio began training surgeons in late summer to use its U.S. Food and Drug Administration-cleared device that uses AI, augmented reality, and light field to help clinicians navigate spinal surgeries. The technology in its Paradigm navigation platform allows surgeons to digitally map and visualize the surgery site.
ORtelligence followed suit with the October debut of its AI-enabled software application, Rep+, which enables medtech representatives to interact remotely with surgical teams, thereby ensuring their presence during procedures. The software’s custom user interface displays all necessary tools and implants for a surgery.
AI’s presence beyond the OR grew stronger with new pre-surgical planning offerings from Formus Labs, PEEK Health S.A., and Smith+Nephew plc.
Formus Labs’ hip replacement planning software combines AI and computational biomechanics to create a surgical plan in less than an hour, while PEEK Health’s software produces live automatic surgical planning, landmark detection, and X-ray/CT scan segmentation within 30 seconds.
Smith+Nephew’s newest AI-powered surgical robotics tools include Personalized Planning and RI.INSIGHTS data visualization platform. The former works with the company’s CORI surgical system to set initial total knee implant placement based on AI-guided reference values, surgeons’ own planning preferences, and patient-specific deformities. RI.INSIGHTS, correspondingly, enables surgeons to reference individual case performance and benchmark the data against an anonymized global information bank. The platform aims to give clinicians a simple, effective way to link patient-reported outcome measures to pre-operative planning and intra-operative decisions in robotically-enabled knee replacements. Surgeon-specific dashboards allow physicians to analyze procedure data like case times, resections, and alignment, as well as ligament tensioning information from the CORI digital tensioner.
“Advanced analytics combined with the CORI Surgical System will offer a new dimension in joint arthroplasty,” Dr. Thorsten Seyler of Duke University said upon the AI tools’ release in May. “It will allow for true personalization when performing joint replacement procedures.”
Exactech and Zimmer Biomet, conversely, are leveraging AI technology to ensure personalization after joint replacement procedures. Zimmer Biomet further embedded artificial intelligence into its ZBEdge Dynamic Intelligence this past spring by integrating WalkAI into the company’s mymobility platform. WalkAI benchmarks patient gait metrics and helps surgeons predict post-hip or knee surgery gait speed. The tool also allows patients to track and measure their post-operative gait speed against their peers.
Exactech is using its beefed-up AI proficiency to improve shoulder replacement surgical outcomes. The company in early spring exclusively licensed new software from Advata that will further facilitate Predict+ integration with the firm’s Equinoxe planning app and encourage integration with other software and database. Exactech’s Predict+ uses machine learning to create personalized risk-benefit analyses for predicting shoulder replacement outcomes. The software is based on clinical experience documented in a single-shoulder prosthesis outcomes database of more than 15,000 patients.
Exactech also has hired a team of machine learning researchers and engineers to further accelerate the company’s R&D capabilities and improve its aptitude for producing AI-based software for various orthopedic applications.
Stryker Corp. is on that same accelerated pathway to AI prowess.
“I’m incredibly excited about artificial intelligence,” Stryker Chairman/CEO Kevin Lobo told Fox Business Network’s “Claman Countdown” in February. “[Stryker AI] is now looking at how else we can deploy AI across the depth of our portfolios. We already had one application for shoulder replacement, where we used AI based on a scan to actually suggest to the surgeon what type of implant they should use...So this is the future. There’s no question AI will be proliferated across all of Stryker.”
And all of orthopedics, according to ChatGPT:
In the world of orthopaedics, AI takes flight, bringing benefits that shine so bright. With precision and insight, it aids the way, enhancing patient care day by day...In orthopaedics, AI takes its stance, improve lives with its intelligent dance. A partner to experts, a valuable ally, embracing the future, where innovation will fly.1
Not bad for a first-time AI poet.
Reference
1 bit.ly/3MxgRIt
Read more: bit.ly/3FKg5nF
Check out more of ODT’s 2023 year in review:
The Maddening Merry-Go-Round of MDR
EtO Gets a Clean Start
Ortho’s Mega-M&A Is MIA
Perhaps a mix of all three?
Or, possibly none of the above. Maybe it was nothing more than simple receptivity that led Cody C. Wyles, M.D., to recognize the remarkable potential of artificial intelligence (AI) within healthcare.
Maybe it was that open-mindedness that prompted Wyles—an internationally recognized hip and knee reconstruction surgeon—to verse himself in data and computer science, and form a small AI research team at the Mayo Clinic several years ago.
“It started with two or three of us meeting on nights and weekends to do proof-of-concept studies,” Wyles told a Clinic news team this past spring. “Now, we have an orthopedic artificial intelligence lab with eight surgeons, four data scientists, radiologists, and a lab manager.”
And a director—Wyles. His Orthopedic Surgery Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at Mayo Clinic is developing orthopedic surgery-focused AI solutions designed to improve both provider proficiency and patient care. Wyles has found AI to be a particularly helpful tool for radiologists, as it can effectively annotate physical features, monitor implant positioning, and predict risk from X-rays. The technology also has proven effective in processing language—Wyles’ team has used it to extract data in free-text form from typed or dictated clinical notes, and search for potential complications to patients’ cases (i.e., a draining wound).
“AI allows us to answer questions in new ways and offers insights into problems we’ve plateaued in trying to solve for many years,” noted Wyles, an assistant professor of Orthopedic Surgery and Clinical Anatomy, and senior associate consultant of Adult Hip and Knee Reconstruction at the Mayo Clinic. “It allows us to treat our patients in a more personalized way. We are new to this—our lab and its efforts have been ongoing for three years—but we have a big team and a ton of momentum. We want to lead in this space and are poised to do so with the necessary resources and infrastructure.”
Wyles’ team, however, faces fierce competition for that leadership role: AI has rapidly gained prominence in orthopedics over the last 12 months, capturing interest (and significant investment) amongst the industry’s diversified business base. Major implant manufacturers, startup software firms, and mid-size service providers are increasingly tapping the vast potential of artificial intelligence-driven technology to create powerful workflow tools for clinicians.
“We’re at the cusp of a boom of artificially intelligent orthopedic technologies,” Derek Shanahan, vice president of marketing for Denver-based digital health firm Exer, wrote in a January website post.
“With a growing tidal wave of patient data, a constant industry-wide drive to improve surgical accuracy, and higher post-surgical outcome expectations from patients, AI is sure to have a growing presence in orthopedics—both inside and outside the operating room.”
ORtelligence and Proprio helped AI expand its operating room footprint this year with their respective solutions. Seattle-based Proprio began training surgeons in late summer to use its U.S. Food and Drug Administration-cleared device that uses AI, augmented reality, and light field to help clinicians navigate spinal surgeries. The technology in its Paradigm navigation platform allows surgeons to digitally map and visualize the surgery site.
ORtelligence followed suit with the October debut of its AI-enabled software application, Rep+, which enables medtech representatives to interact remotely with surgical teams, thereby ensuring their presence during procedures. The software’s custom user interface displays all necessary tools and implants for a surgery.
AI’s presence beyond the OR grew stronger with new pre-surgical planning offerings from Formus Labs, PEEK Health S.A., and Smith+Nephew plc.
Formus Labs’ hip replacement planning software combines AI and computational biomechanics to create a surgical plan in less than an hour, while PEEK Health’s software produces live automatic surgical planning, landmark detection, and X-ray/CT scan segmentation within 30 seconds.
Smith+Nephew’s newest AI-powered surgical robotics tools include Personalized Planning and RI.INSIGHTS data visualization platform. The former works with the company’s CORI surgical system to set initial total knee implant placement based on AI-guided reference values, surgeons’ own planning preferences, and patient-specific deformities. RI.INSIGHTS, correspondingly, enables surgeons to reference individual case performance and benchmark the data against an anonymized global information bank. The platform aims to give clinicians a simple, effective way to link patient-reported outcome measures to pre-operative planning and intra-operative decisions in robotically-enabled knee replacements. Surgeon-specific dashboards allow physicians to analyze procedure data like case times, resections, and alignment, as well as ligament tensioning information from the CORI digital tensioner.
“Advanced analytics combined with the CORI Surgical System will offer a new dimension in joint arthroplasty,” Dr. Thorsten Seyler of Duke University said upon the AI tools’ release in May. “It will allow for true personalization when performing joint replacement procedures.”
Exactech and Zimmer Biomet, conversely, are leveraging AI technology to ensure personalization after joint replacement procedures. Zimmer Biomet further embedded artificial intelligence into its ZBEdge Dynamic Intelligence this past spring by integrating WalkAI into the company’s mymobility platform. WalkAI benchmarks patient gait metrics and helps surgeons predict post-hip or knee surgery gait speed. The tool also allows patients to track and measure their post-operative gait speed against their peers.
Exactech is using its beefed-up AI proficiency to improve shoulder replacement surgical outcomes. The company in early spring exclusively licensed new software from Advata that will further facilitate Predict+ integration with the firm’s Equinoxe planning app and encourage integration with other software and database. Exactech’s Predict+ uses machine learning to create personalized risk-benefit analyses for predicting shoulder replacement outcomes. The software is based on clinical experience documented in a single-shoulder prosthesis outcomes database of more than 15,000 patients.
Exactech also has hired a team of machine learning researchers and engineers to further accelerate the company’s R&D capabilities and improve its aptitude for producing AI-based software for various orthopedic applications.
Stryker Corp. is on that same accelerated pathway to AI prowess.
“I’m incredibly excited about artificial intelligence,” Stryker Chairman/CEO Kevin Lobo told Fox Business Network’s “Claman Countdown” in February. “[Stryker AI] is now looking at how else we can deploy AI across the depth of our portfolios. We already had one application for shoulder replacement, where we used AI based on a scan to actually suggest to the surgeon what type of implant they should use...So this is the future. There’s no question AI will be proliferated across all of Stryker.”
And all of orthopedics, according to ChatGPT:
In the world of orthopaedics, AI takes flight, bringing benefits that shine so bright. With precision and insight, it aids the way, enhancing patient care day by day...In orthopaedics, AI takes its stance, improve lives with its intelligent dance. A partner to experts, a valuable ally, embracing the future, where innovation will fly.1
Not bad for a first-time AI poet.
Reference
1 bit.ly/3MxgRIt
Read more: bit.ly/3FKg5nF
Check out more of ODT’s 2023 year in review:
The Maddening Merry-Go-Round of MDR
EtO Gets a Clean Start
Ortho’s Mega-M&A Is MIA