Medical technology firm Smith & Nephew has acquired two software assets from surgical software development company, S2 Interactive.

Smith

Terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

The acquired applications, including Virtual Backtable and TrayTouch, will be used by Syncera, Smith & Nephew’s new orthopaedic supply chain model for hospitals and ambulatory surgery centres (ASCs).

The software assets will enable hospital and ASC customers to access, analyse and manage real-time data related to instrument utilisation during surgery.

According to Smith & Nephew, these data help central processing and operating room (OR) administrators to identify the instruments an individual surgeon uses during a specific procedure and assemble, prepare and streamline the instrument trays accordingly, and train the OR staff using interactive, visual layouts of each tray.

Syncera senior vice-president and general manager Stuart Morris-Hipkins said: "As operating rooms continue to look for ways to improve efficiency and trim costs, better instrument management becomes vital.

"By organising the instrument trays and the OR equipment based on the surgical sequence and the instrument usage of each surgeon, a hospital can significantly reduce the overall costs associated with instrument prep and assembly without sacrificing patient care."

Virtual Backtable offers a visual map of each surgeon’s preferences covering patient preparation, OR planning and the surgical sequence. It also allows in training new scrub technicians on the surgical sequence, instrument flow and tray layout.

TrayTouch is said to enhance the efficiency and documents inspection of the central processing department that cleans, re-assembles and sterilises the instrument sets prior returning them to the OR’s.


Image: Smith and Nephew Factory from the A63, Kingston Upon Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, UK. Photo: courtesy of Mtaylor848.