Your Support, Your Impact: A New AI Platform to Record Surgeries

Thanks to your generosity, the Montreal General Hospital (MGH-MUHC) is one of the first hospital centres in North America to begin using Theator. Presently available in five MGH-MUHC operating rooms, this technology allows surgeons to more easily record and review operations and applies AI analytics for educational and improvement purposes.

McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) Surgeon-in-Chief Dr. Liane Feldman says this tool can be invaluable for research, teaching, and standardization – while positively impacting patients. “This data is an incredible resource for training, quality improvement and research, and is already being used to review and improve surgical techniques, train and coach residents, and in research projects,” she explains.

“The Montreal General Hospital Foundation (MGHF) is pleased to support the MGH-MUHC’s use of the new Theator technology as part of Dr. Feldman’s ambitious Future of Surgery initiative, which aims to make surgery less invasive, more precise, and more effective – with shorter recovery times and improved patient outcomes,” says Stephanie Riddell, President & CEO of the MGHF.

Among the Future of Surgery’s many transformative projects, optimizing new technologies such as Theator is an important focus. “This platform allows us to store the video and applies Theator’s AI and computer vision algorithms to help us make sense of the videos,” says Dr. Feldman, noting that she and her team are not inventors of this technology but rather early adopters discovering its potential.

Accelerating the Surgical Learning Curve

In terms of teaching and coaching, Dr. Feldman has started using Theator to do things like evaluate a resident’s laparoscopic skills and assess  how often a surgeon has achieved a specific quality metric in an operation. “It will say, ‘Well, you’ve done 20 cases, and you achieved this metric 85 percent of the time.’ Then, people can review their own results, compare this to benchmarks, and see if they want to make any revisions – it’s a great method for coaching and feedback.”

Dr. Feldman and her team are also using the platform for research. “One thing we’d like to do is help the surgeon in the operating room develop their expertise more quickly,” she says. Take, for example, a hernia operation. Dr. Feldman estimates it takes about 250 cases for a surgeon to perfect their technique for this procedure. “Even if you specialize in hernia surgery, you can see how that would take a long, long time.” An AI-driven platform like Theator could help standardize the operation “so everybody has the same results as opposed to variability between surgeries,” which Dr. Feldman likens to having “guardrails” for patient safety and optimal outcomes.

Can a Computer Learn to Recognize Parts of Anatomy?

In addition to how they are currently using the platform (improving techniques, training, and research), perhaps Theator could eventually help improve operational efficiency, standardize surgical procedures, and even address complications in the operating room.

Let’s say a surgeon would like an opinion from a colleague,” says Dr Feldman. “They could essentially look at the live surgery from any internet connection and provide help and advice, which is potentially very useful.” In the future, maybe the computer itself could learn to provide real-time support and feedback. “We’re working on some projects using hernia surgery to start training AI models to identify parts of the anatomy,” she says. “The concept is to eventually provide point-of-care decision support.”

One goal could be to help surgeons recognize “when you’re out of a safe zone and that might lead to a complication.” She imagines this might trigger an alarm or a message – similar to an alert you might get when parking your car too close to something. “Then you can decide, ‘no I’m fine,’ or you can adjust. If we have enough videos, maybe you can start to train these models the way we train your brain when we’re learning under supervision of an expert.”

Ultimately, Dr. Feldman says that surgical results continue to improve because of less invasive techniques. “But to keep up, we require new robotic equipment, new people with these skills, new approaches to training, and visionary research programs.” Adopting new platforms such as Theator is a step forward in the excellence of care offered to patients, and in realizing the Future of Surgery’s promising vision.

Let’s transform healthcare together.

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