Outline Your Operational Strategy For Planning And Rolling Out Your Product

Rolling out telesurgery service should be collaborative effort and should include all members of the hospital’s operating room (OR) team, such as surgeons, nurses, physician assistants, scrub technicians, anesthesiologists, senior perfusionists, as well as members of the medical engineering team (Rehman et al. , 2013; The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 2010). Prior to implementing this service, the OR and medical engineering teams should perform the necessary planning, validation of telesurgery equipment to be used, and various training steps in order to successfully perform robotically assisted surgery (Rehman et al. , 2013; The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 2010).

When these steps are completed, the OR staff should be educated on differences and benefits amongst the conventional and robotic surgery (Nifong, Rodriguez, & Chitwood, 2008). It is imperative that OR staff supports each other on this endeavor, otherwise surgeons might decide to revert to conventional surgical procedures (Nifong et al. , 2008). OR team training should be also performed, and one of the training techniques that should be implemented includes Virtual Reality (VR) (Marescaux & Rubino, 2003; Marescaux et al. , 2008). VR offers a safe training environment for surgeons, and it involves use of three-dimensional (3D) computer-generated images that mimic the patient’s anatomic structures, thus enabling surgeons to be trained in a realistic environment (Marescaux & Rubino, 2003).

During training in the VR environment errors can occur without harming the patient, hence surgeons can learn from own mistakes. VR training provides many benefits, some of which are: improving educational opportunities, shortening residency programs, and lowering the cost of education for the trained surgeons; increasing patient safety by avoiding the detrimental consequences of learning; and most importantly, improving OR performance which in turn will lead to the reduction in malpractice lawsuits (Marescaux & Rubino, 2003; Marescaux et al. , 2008; Wiederhold, 2006). Another method that is recommended for training of surgeons who will be performing telesurgery involves a telesurgery simulator. During the training session, simulation has enabled trainees to experience latency, while a wide range of slowly increased delays (0, 350, and 700 ms delays), packet loss and other parameters were applied during the training session (Rayman, 2009). By comparing these results against the results obtained from the trainees who experienced full latency at 700 ms, it was concluded that no significant difference was observed (Rayman, 2009). This training method was important since it was the first time that trainees were trained for delay, while the previously reported training sessions were more concentrated on compensating for delay. Overall results show that both trainee groups performed equally well during an ultimate exercise session, which was indication that the training session itself had greater bearing on performance that the addition of latency (Rayman, 2009).

Other recommended training methods include dry lab, ex-vivo tissue, and in vivo/cadaver models training (Buffi, Van Der Poel, Guazzoni, & Mottrie, 2014; Sun, Aron, & Hung, 2014). While dry lab training allows trainees to become familiar with the OR instruments, and can be taught bimanuality, dissection, and suturing techniques, ex-vivo tissue training will mimic surgical procedure. Hence, both of these training methods will enable trainees to develop their surgical skills. In regard to cadaver training, it is an ideal training method for surgical trainees since cadavers provide an environment with accurate anatomy. Lastly, in vivo animal models provide a surrogate for perfused and living tissue (Sun et al. , 2014). Once all these training steps are successfully accomplished, trainees should watch live surgeries and surgical videos, and assist in surgical procedures prior to be ready to independently perform surgeries (Sun et al. , 2014). Future vision for this product and how it fits into mission and vision of your organization.

Robotic surgery is a novel surgical technique that is still not fully explored and accepted, however, this technique has great potential to change the future of health care industry, primarily in the surgical field. In the future of telesurgery, the biggest changes will be in regard to creating an OR without surgical staff. It is predicted that all surgeon’s requests will be fulfilled by robots.

For instance, scrub and circulation nurse’s current functions of replacing instruments and providing new surgical supplies will be replaced by the robotic supply dispenser and robotic tool changer. This process was being tested and the obtained results have shown that robots are performing these functions with the same pace and precision as the nurses. Hence, nurses will have more time to focus on other important issues during the surgery (Satava, 2011). Robots will also be helpful in informing the Central Supply department when disposable surgical supplies and instruments need to be automatically ordered. This is important since it enables health care institutions to keep track of the surgical instruments and supplies, but also to make sure that the inventory supplies and instruments that are in stock are used first before they expire, and new surgical instruments and supplies are ordered and restocked. This in turn will lower the cost by not ordering an excessive amount of supplies/instruments and lowering the number of staff who would take care or inventory and ordering (Satava, 2011). Another expected change involves integrating pre-operative warm-up exercise for surgeons, which is expected to decrease the length of surgical procedures and lower the chances for surgical procedure errors to occur (Satava, 2011). It is also expected that some surgical procedures will become automatic tasks, and that robots will perform some surgical functions independently, for instance, sewing the wound ends together (Satava, 2011). Other expected changes concern surgical instruments. It is projected that surgical instruments will become intelligent, in the sense that they will use energy in diagnosing and treating patients (Satava, 2011).

In addition, nano-robots and micro-robots are being developed. It is expected that nano-robots will provide great assistance during the surgical procedure on a cellular level or intracellular level, which will be critical in genetic engineering. On the other hand, micro-robots are expected to aid in capsule movement and assist in microsurgical procedures (Satava, 2011). Overall, it is predicted that in the future, surgical instruments and systems will become more intelligent and integrated, and that these changes will shape the future of the surgical field and medicine in general.