Orthocrat Ltd. is an Israeli company that is developing computer-assisted surgical planning tools for orthopedic and trauma surgeons. ISRAEL21c reports:
TraumaCad allows surgeons to develop a pre-operative surgery plan – including manipulation of orthopedic digital images using image processing technique techniques, reduction of fractures, and application of suitable fixation systems or prosthetic systems. The TraumaCad allows greater accuracy and simplicity, when compared to traditional templating techniques commonly used.
According to Glozman, the software was developed “mainly with trauma in mind. We noticed that there is a very developed need for [software for] total joint planning, the replacement of a joint, such as a hip or a knee. This type of procedure is becoming more and more successful and more and more popular.”
While radiology departments have gone digital, the orthopedics department didn’t have a tool for using the computerized information to help them.
TraumaCad is comprised of two modules: JointFactor and TraumaFactor. The first allows the surgeon to sit at his or her desk and find exactly the right implant for the joint from a library of templates of thousands of implants, using the digital viewer to match it to the patient using X-ray or CT scans of the relevant area imported from the Picture Archiving Communication System (PACS) system which is becoming increasingly common in hospitals.
The images are automatically calibrated on screen, making it simple to make the anatomical measurements surgeons need before replacing a joint. TraumaFactor is a similar tool but for the trauma environment, and both modules save a full report on the procedure for the patient’s medical file.
Because hospitals aren’t rapid adopters of new technology, Glozman and Liram decided to market their software primarily through distributors. In November 2004, TraumaCad received clearance from the US Food and Drug Administration, which wasn’t strictly necessary for a software tool but “distributors like to know that someone has tested it,” Glozman told ISRAEL21c.
Their hard work traveling around the US to sell their system paid off: they have signed contracts with nine PACS vendors so far, including Web MD, Orex and Dynamic Imaging, and count among their partners medical device giant Smith and Nephew. There are already several installations of the tool in, among other locations, the Harris Methodist H.E.B. Hospital, in Bedford, Texas, and Stony Brook University Hospital in Long Island, New York.
More at Orthocrat website…
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