Disruptive Augmented Reality (AR) has shown potential to improve healthcare and Drill Surgeries uses it to guide surgeons and reduce radiation at hospitals worldwide.
AR hides in its essence the key to improve how patients are operated at hospitals. Drill Surgeries is one of the companies exploring the multi-faceted use of AR to develop the next generation of medical devices.
Based in the UK and launched in 2019, Drill Surgeries works with scientists, engineers and doctors to create medical devices tailored to the 21st century needs of surgeons. Focussed on improving healthcare through technology, their advances in the use of Augmented Reality show potential to provide surgeons with educated information to conduct surgeries faster, with over 50% less radiation and at a lower cost for hospitals.
Moises Barbera, founder and managing director of Drill Surgeries speaks about his passion and life in the start-up: “We have spent years working to make sure we develop the Next Generation of medical devices the right way.
“Our approach has been overseen by surgeons from different countries through the entire R&D process. Instead of relying on commercial AR glasses, we build our own medical devices from scratch to make sure the learning curve is as short as possible and hence product acquisition becomes organic.”
Discussing particularities, having identified recurring problems at some of the most common surgeries in hospitals, Drill Surgeries focusses on improving intramedullary nailing surgeries, a type of surgery aimed at assisting the welding process of broken bones which is performed over 10,000 times per year only in the UK.
In its current state, the surgery this start-up is looking to improve relies heavily on X-rays and the traditional techniques don’t achieve the high levels of efficiency expected.
Drill Surgeries’ medical devices feature AR and tracking algorithms at the core, an approach that already shows potential to positively impact this type of orthopaedic surgeries, offering a way to guide surgeons through every step of the surgery and avoiding the need of radiation and obsolete surgical techniques noticeably. Starting with this given type of surgery but, as the start-up expresses with the eyes on expanding to cover many other orthopaedic surgeries.
Spanish surgeon and co-founder of Drill Surgeries, Dr. Javier Coloma, said: “We should never forget that the real purpose in our mission as entrepreneurs in the medtech sector is no other than to offer the best care and treatment to our patients while ensuring the highest levels of efficiency and security.
“We have created a device that not only shows potential to reduce operating time, but also to eliminate over 50% of the X-Ray radiation received by surgeons and patients in the process.”
Moises Barbera added: “If we substitute radiation with AR guidance, we are providing more information, faster and more accurately than ever before through X-Rays and I am confident to say we are one of the pioneers in these efforts.”
The company is currently raising its next round of funding to bring this product to market.
