What’s the New Trending Technology in the Operating Room in 2022?
Over the last few decades, the healthcare sector has witnessed astonishing advancements with the adoption of several modern technologies such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and many more.
These advanced technologies have helped healthcare experts save countless lives and allowed them to manage and treat such diseases that were not possible a few decades ago.
One of the healthcare areas greatly benefited from the advancements in the technologies is the present operating room (OR) management solution.
Though, traditional OR had all the basic equipment required inside the operating room. However, the lack of automatic data management and communication among different OR components resulted in the growing interest in the adoption of advanced operating room management software.
According to BIS Research, the global operating room management solutions market was valued at $2,023.5 million in 2021 and is expected to reach $3,699.1 million by 2031. The market is supposed to rise at a CAGR of 6.29% during the forecast period 2022–2031.
Let’s discuss the ongoing trends altering the operating room management software and allowing experts to perform safer surgeries in less time with more proficiency.
Trends of an operating room, are they really helpful?
- Voice Recognition
Earlier, the monitors and devices used inside the operating rooms were touch-controlled, but now they are being replaced by voice-controlled monitors and devices that work with better efficiency.
The adoption of a voice control system inside the operating room has allowed experts to reduce the chances of contamination during the surgery. The team of surgical experts inside the OR can use a voice control system for controlling lights, operating imaging devices, and changing the content on the monitor without even moving from one place to another.
Due to the speech recognition system in the operating room, there is an improvement in the concentration level of the surgeons. Also, the workflow of the surgical team gets systematized and allows nurses to focus on other things required in OR.
- Smart Lighting Design
The introduction of several medical imaging devices inside the OR poses several challenges compared to traditional lighting designs. There is always a high risk of eye strain and glare due to these lighting devices for the present surgical team. Also, they reduce the visual acuity during the ongoing surgery.
To overcome the problem of traditional lighting systems inside the OR, smart light systems are being adopted that can be moved out or into the OR without many challenges.
The advanced OR lighting system is also available with added features such as a high-quality camera with the capability of recording. An example of such a smart OR light system is the surgical headlight. It is used by the surgeon when there is a requirement for third light during the surgery.
The advantages possessed by surgical headlights are easy mobility, hand-free adjustments, and reduced heat emissions.
- Growing Demand for Fast Internet Connectivity Speed
The use of the internet is the most demanding feature in every healthcare area, including the OR, to allow advanced technologies to operate efficiently.
Faster internet connectivity is not only introduced for services such as teleconsultation and video conferencing. It has also been introduced to improve the data exchange between the OR devices, such as monitoring and medical imaging devices.
The result of the faster internet connection is a better collaboration of different surgeons and enhanced patient care during the surgery. Standardized IP networks play an important role in eliminating cable entanglements and providing faster connections to OR devices.
- Robotic surgery
The demand for automation is constantly increasing in several sectors, including the healthcare operating room. The adoption of automated smart devices in the OR will help to enhance the surgeon’s work and perform improved treatments.
Automated robotics surgeries are greatly popular in the cardiac valve, prostatectomies, and gynecologic surgical methods. The key factor pushing the growth of the robotics surgery trend is the less pain, quick healing time, and minimal blood loss for the patients in comparison to the conventional surgeries.
Currently, the future of robotic surgery is uncertain, and several arguments are going on over expenses, training requirements, and safety for robotics procedures.
- Use of Virtual Reality in Operating Room
One side of surgery that is hidden by most patients is the planning step. In this step, the support staff and surgeon determine the most effective approaches and methods for performing the surgery on the patients with the use of operation room devices such as advanced monitors.
Surgeons use the virtual technology attached to the patients to get more useful insight about the diseases and accordingly planning the exact route of the surgical procedures to be followed in the OR.
Such planning methods are faster, more successful, and allow better QR data management compared to traditional planning procedures.
To Conclude
Technological advances have various positive changes in the present operating room and software, such as increased safety, better patient care, and high accuracy.
The current ongoing trends in the operating room have promising capabilities to alter and make the OR system more advanced.
