World-renowned orthopedic surgeon and recognized pioneer in computer navigation arthroplasty,[i] Heiko Graichen, MD, PhD, shares his experience as a data-driven orthopedic surgeon exploring ways to[…]

How global collaboratives inform and inspire product development, surgical education, and training. The collaboration between healthcare technology vendors and clinicians is foundational for[…]

My career began at the advent of minimally invasive surgery, at a time when the surgeon, not the patient, dictated the approach to care. But now we are seeing a transformational shift based on a[…]

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) throughout the continuum of surgical care is growing, but widespread development and adoption presents some challenges. I joined moderator Brian Chapman of ZS[…]

Surgical procedures are the epicenter of profitability and risk for global healthcare organizations. Approximately 30 percent of the global burden of disease is caused by conditions that can be[…]

The Digital OR is a buzzword that has been used for the past several years to refer to anything from robotics to connected devices in the operating room (OR). Data-driven surgery means looking at[…]

Operating Room (OR)management trends showed, even before the pandemic, an increased focus on utilization, waiting time, overtime, and financial performance.¹Recent research emphasizes the importance[…]

This Thieme OP Management up2date article explores the innovative medical technology that can enable the automatic collection and evaluation of data, the integration of support systems for improving[…]

Combining capabilities to develop breakthrough technologies for transforming surgery. Hospitals and Surgery Centers face many challenges in surgery as they work to recover from COVID. Directors of[…]

By Björn von Siemens, contributing author Prof. Eric Vibert, MD, PhD

The operating room is a place where millions of lives are saved and improved each year. But it is also a place where nightmares[…]

Surgical procedures are major drivers of hospital revenue, yet they’re also a source of significant costs when complications are taken into consideration. And in an era of sweeping changes in[…]

If you’re still running your hospital operating rooms without the benefit of data-driven insights and actionable, real-time information, let us offer you some food for thought.

In an environment like the operating room, where mistakes have life-threatening consequences, the margin for error is slim. Not learning from or repeating errors is not acceptable. Yet, the same[…]

During COVID-19, profitable elective surgeries have been delayed and healthcare staff have been overworked. The pandemic has increased the pressure on hospital leaders to maintain profitability and[…]

Challenge: Demonstrate the use of CX-ADVANCE to improve efficiency in the workflow of surgical video-based assessment in quality-focused organizations.

Background

The University of Iowa system of[…]

Q&A with Gail Pietrzyk, Corporate Director of Surgical Services, Universal Health Services

In the operating room where every minute counts, time is the most valuable — and elusive — resource a[…]

The operating room is like the thermometer of a health care organization’s financial health, a fact that the COVID-19 crisis has only magnified. It accounts for more than half of all hospital[…]

It is no secret that the pandemic has dramatically affected hospital and health system financial fortunes. Elective care is down dramatically and perhaps rightly so, at least to some extent.[…]

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the American hospital system in lasting ways. But while it has exacerbated and highlighted many of the trends affecting the industry, it certainly didn’t create[…]

There are two fundamental yet contradictory trends playing out in operating rooms across the country. New technology that promises to revolutionize surgery is constantly hitting the market, making[…]

“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn”

Over the course of history, the quote has been attributed to the likes of Aristotle, Confucius, Benjamin Franklin and[…]

During the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, hospital admissions fell precipitously in the US. In the week of April 11, hospital admissions dropped to as low as 68% of predicted admissions. Some[…]

By virtually every metric, COVID-19 is the biggest healthcare emergency of the last century. There is, however, a growing number of voices suggesting that it’s even worse than most people realize[…]

Why does it matter?

Because it strikes at solving a problem of global scale. In the US alone, medical malpractice is the 3rd most frequent cause of death. While this is a dire fact, there is no need[…]

Digital Surgery is more than foisting “cut-here-using-this-instrument” recommendations on a surgeon or providing a technical skills assessment to a resident. An integrated Digital Surgery platform[…]

From reading the news you would think that people’s experience of COVID-19 is random, and down to chance.  

How is it after all that two people of the same sex and of a similar age and social[…]

Given the ever-changing landscape and increasing importance of virtual learning alternatives, how do we best adapt surgical training programs to embrace the needs and nuances of today’s surgeons? As[…]

This article was first published on Linkedin on 17th March, 2020

It’s now an ominous rule of thumb that we can predict the future of #Coronavirus by looking to Italy: currently, the number of United[…]

An article recently published in the Journal of Surgical Education  has a tongue-in-cheek title based on the oft-quoted surgical training quip, “ See one. Do one. Teach one.”

The obvious meaning[…]

Sepsis, a leading cause of death in hospitals, is the body’s overactive and toxic response to infections. Sepsis affects more than 30 million people worldwide every year and is the most common killer[…]

Previously, we explored on this blog how technical skills can impact surgical outcomes. But, recent studies show how poor non-technical skills could be a significant cause of adverse events in the OR.

Over the past decade, hospitals and health systems have increasingly focussed on addressing the rising cost of healthcare. With the expense of surgical care playing a major role (nearly 30% of all[…]

The evolving healthcare industry poses a number of challenges to both big and small hospitals and healthcare organizations. 

One of the major issues the industry faces today is linking together[…]

Running an OR is a tough job. Several management studies - including Harvard Business Review - reported on the challenges OR Directors face: specifically, being caught between business directives[…]

Technology has played a pivotal role in healthcare transformation. But will the confluence of digital technologies have the same disruptive impact on surgical care? What can we expect when it comes[…]

A Johns Hopkins research team revealed that hospitals across the United States waste nearly $15 million in unused surgical supplies each year. As the research team pointed out, these “perfectly good,[…]

In 2017, an Accenture study revealed that artificial intelligence in healthcare could realize up to $150 billion in annual savings by 2026 - specifically, using AI in conjunction with clinical health[…]

With data-enabled technologies to document and analyze performance and safety in the OR, hospitals can leverage their own surgical data resources to effectively reduce the occurrence of surgical[…]

There’s little doubt that cloud-based technologies are reducing friction in hospital workflow. Ultimately though, CIOs and healthcare IT professional are the gatekeepers before any new technology[…]

Over 313 million surgeries take place each year around the world. 4.2 million people (7.7% of all deaths worldwide) die as a result of post-operative complications. Finding the root cause of these[…]

As hospitals continue to implement advanced analytic technologies, in-house data science teams are quickly becoming a new benchmark, joining clinicians and hospital operations in providing the most[…]

Healthcare isn’t agile. In fact, it’s pretty close to the bottom of nimble industries.

While technology has helped to address many of the hurdles hospitals face. But to address the root cause of these issues, healthcare providers should look to design thinking to find innovative[…]

Welcome 2019! Having looked back at our most read articles from 2018, we thought it important to consider what the year ahead has in store.

2018 has been a big year for us at caresyntax. From the continued expansion of our global operations to the launching of our Smart Surgery Blog, we’ve worked hard to bring you the latest updates in[…]

American hospitals are struggling. In addition the the rising cost of healthcare globally, US hospitals continue to pour money into the system and get less out of it. According to a study by the[…]

Hospitals gather vast amounts of information. Thanks to new technologies like AI and machine learning, this data is now more valuable to hospitals than ever before. By 2025, big data in healthcare[…]

It’s generally accepted that surgical skills have an impact on a patient’s outcome. In spite of this assumption, there has been little work to more thoroughly investigate to what extent it has an[…]

Previously, we discussed both the potential and the pitfalls of surgical checklists. While their usage has been shown to help minimize surgical site infections and reduce post-op mortality by up to[…]

10 years since it was first introduced, the World Health Organization’s Surgical Safety Checklist has proven its worth. Admittedly, the Checklist was shown to be effective from early on--a study[…]

The benefits of big data in healthcare are hard to deny. From enhancing diagnostic processes to improving responses to epidemics, advanced analytics are reshaping how we approach public health. And[…]

IBM Watson Health recently performed a study examining 14 hospital-acquired conditions (HACs) tracked by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The study looked at over 20 million[…]

When it comes to surgery, many assume that improving outcomes depends solely on improving technique. While this certainly plays a major role, surgery relies on a much larger set of skills, not all of[…]

There’s no getting around it, surgery is incredibly complex. For residents learning how to suture and tying knots to experienced surgeons learning the latest in laparoscopic procedures, mastering the[…]

Surgical site infections are incredibly costly to hospitals. So when the University of Iowa managed to reduce patient infection rates by 74%, people paid attention. By leveraging EHR data in[…]

It’s 2018, and the Data Revolution is in full-swing.

Building successful applications must strike a balance between an effective, intuitive, and user-friendly frontend on the one hand, and a succinct backend that captures complex processes and data on[…]

This is Part 2 of an article from caresyntax Senior Adviser Dr. John Birkmeyer. In Part 1, Dr. Birkmeyer explains how surgical variation impacts patient outcomes. Part 1 additionally examined how big[…]

Hospitals lose millions of dollars every year as a result of complications that arise in the OR. Re-admissions and longer hospital stays are a drain on hospital resources. They are also frequently[…]

Several years ago, when I was CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, I was having a conversation with my CFO on the topic of a potential major tech investment that was sitting on my desk and[…]

For many hospitals, the benefits of migrating their clinical data to cloud storage are too great to ignore.

However, as the importance of data grows with reimbursement tied to quality outcomes,[…]

Each year, 1 in 4 Americans die from heart disease, and in 2018, nearly 2 million people will be diagnosed with cancer.

For many, surgical procedures such as angioplasties or mastectomies offer a[…]

The modern OR is a technological wonder. Surgeons have never had so much real-time information at their disposal: data about current procedures, patient conditions and histories, even risk[…]

The OR is an incredibly complex mixture of technique and technology. Driven by the exorbitantly rising cost of healthcare and a push towards value-based care, the demand for new, innovative, and[…]

According to the Office of the National Coordinator, 96% of hospitals own EHR (electronic health record) technology. While their widespread adoption has mitigated many technical challenges associated[…]

Healthcare has long lagged behind other industries in embracing the most current tech developments. Recently, however, broader adoption of Internet of Things technology in healthcare has paved the[…]

The enactment of GDPR this past May represents a major shift in how the ownership of personal data is perceived. Healthcare providers, in particular, collect vast amounts of highly sensitive data and[…]

It’s 2018, and rarely will you encounter a hospital or health system whose leaders are not concerned with the quality of care that is being provided within their organization. Considered rare just 15[…]

The OR is big business.

Today, at the onset of value-based care (VBC) systems worldwide, operating rooms constitute the centerpiece of hospital finance, accounting for over 50% of total revenue.[…]

As the healthcare system continues its transition to value-based reimbursement, it has become incumbent on chief medical officers to seek out ways to improve quality and lower costs for their[…]

The transition to value-based payments has always been especially challenging for surgeons. The text, video, imaging, and monitoring data they need to work effectively in the OR is typically siloed[…]

Today’s hospitals face relentless pressure to improve quality, especially in the operating room. This challenge requires insights into root causes of problems and unnecessary clinical variations,[…]

America’s operating rooms have an international reputation for driving surgical innovation. But they are also the setting for high variation in performance, as evidenced by the fact that 10 percent[…]

Over the past year, we’ve seen more and more articles about operating room integration appear in medical journals and healthcare publications, an exciting sign that attitudes are shifting toward a[…]