“We like to consider ourselves the Waze of surgery,” says Todd Usen, CEO of ActivSurgical. Waze gathers and presents data from the road in real time, so that driver’s can navigate their trip successfully and avoid problems before they occur. Similarly, ActivSurgical uses sensors and AI to anticipate problems that aren’t visible to a surgeon’s naked eye, and complements where a human is limited. This real time data is available not only to the surgeon performing surgery, but to surgeons, live throughout the world.
With everyone having access to the same information, patients entering surgery can rest assured that they can receive a standardized level of care regardless of a surgeon’s experience. This also has the potential to decrease time spent in hospital, and lowers the rate of readmission.
Readmission not only increases risk of secondary problems and even death, but has implications on health insurance rates.
Quotes:
“Why does the 17 year old driver get all this amazing information that a 50 year old driver gets, whether it’s a rear view camera, whether it’s an orange light in their side view mirror to tell you that there’s a car in your blind spot, a seat that vibrates if you switch lanes. Yet, you go to surgery and a surgeon just out of fellowship doesn’t get the same information that a surgeon that’s been practicing for 30 years does. It’s all intuition and skills. What we’re trying to do is bring that information live to the screen. So every patient around the world should have the confidence that their surgeon has the same exact information as other surgeons to get a great outcome.” ([3:27]-[4:03] | Todd)
“The world’s not going to be hardware forever.” ([8:34]-[8:36] | Todd)
“If you’re a football fan, and you ever watched the NFL on TV, you know, there’s that first down marker that that we see on the screen, that yellow line, but the players don’t see that we see it on TV, I want the players to see that yellow line, I want the doctors to see that yellow line live.” ([32:38]-[32:52] | Todd)
Connect with Brendan Dell:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell
Instagram: @thebrendandell
TikTok: @brendandell39
Buy a copy of Brendan’s Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926
Connect with Todd Usen:
activsurgical.com
Check out Todd Usen’s recommended books:
The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown
https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780143136965
Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making by Tony Fadell
https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780063046061
Rogue Warrior by Richard Marcinko
https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780671795931
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About the Author
Brendan Dell
Brendan Dell is an author and the founder of The Daily Creative. As a freelancer he's worked with clients like Expedia, Cvent, Panasonic, Brother, Windstream and 100+ more to build unignorable tech brands. At The Daily Creative, he shares advice and lessons to help freelancers level up.
