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Dr. Nadine Hachach-Haram[/caption]A JEDDAH-EDUCATED surgeon has developed an augmented reality platform designed to allow surgeons to virtually transport themselves into any operating room globally to guide, train, teach and support other surgeons and medical experts.
Dr. Nadine Hachach-Haram, co-founder of the program is a Plastic Surgery Resident based in London, with a wealth of experience in the field of IT & healthcare. Dr. Nadine has worked on promoting healthcare efficiency projects within the NHS, including developing new IT systems for workflow and patient management at leading London Teaching Hospitals. She has also co-founded and developed a bespoke paperless referral, monitoring and patient pathway system in use both in Britain and Australia.
She is part of the BAPRAS Innovation National Committee and the British Foundation for International Reconstructive Surgery and Training. She is the treasurer of the Royal Society of Medicine, Plastic Surgery section and has been active in charity work globally where she has focused on promoting solutions for sustainable surgical collaboration and education.
Nadine’s father was born in Jeddah and worked in Saudi Arabia for 20 years. As a result Nadine went to school in Jeddah and kept visiting Jeddah and Al-Khobar for many years.
Speaking to Saudi Gazette, Dr. Nadine said the program, named Proximie, is an augmented realty platform that basically allows a remote surgeon to assist in an operation without physically being there (they can annotate the live stream, physically put their hands in the field and guide/proctor an operation from anywhere). It also integrates into any hospitals’ medical record system so one can really discuss a patient in depth on the platform. It is great for surgeon to surgeon collaboration and will transform surgical education and training.
Proximie’s vision and value proposition is to
Radically reduce revision rates and costs by providing virtual access to senior surgeons
Radically reduce the costs of medical training and improve quality
Make medical expertise visual, accessible and collaborative
Reduce patient travel costs and costs for expert access
Provide a central backbone that brings together all patient information in the operating room
Radically reduce the cost for medical device companies’ in training surgeons on the latest equipment and provide assistance when needed
Allow collaboration, training and sales globally
Be easy to use — from an iPad to a sophisticated hospital system
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Surgeons performing procedure through remote consultation. Proximie program on a tablet could be seen in the background
[/caption]The program is now already in use. Proximie aims to revolutionize the way medical professionals provide consultation, teaching, and virtual guidance locally and globally using a dedicated infrastructure for healthcare providers that is scalable both for medical care and education. It is safe, practical and powerful.
She said the program is the first solution to use augmented reality, integrated with a comprehensive patient record and imaging system to assist with ensuring the very best medical and surgical talent is available to provide unrivaled expertise. It allows surgeons to encompass a multidisciplinary perspective in real time with remote surgeons.
Ultimately it is designed by doctors for doctors to provide real time remote expertise, assistance and support in providing high quality assessment, diagnosis and treatment.
Dr. Nadine stresses that these interactive aspects — such as the ability to annotate live streams and access patient records — vastly increase the potential for meaningful collaboration and learning. The educational version that UCL students will be using also has a function that allows them to access elements relevant to their educational curriculum, giving them the ability to take notes and save surgery screenshots for later revision.
Even in developed countries such as the UK, the potential for this technology to maximize efficiency is enormous, as surgeons would be able to support procedures in different hospitals without the time and costs associated with commuting to various locations. It would also ensure better patient care, as the best specialist for a particular procedure could be engaged regardless of their geographical location. In a time of increased austerity and with fewer resources available for funding the NHS, this could prove a significant boost in increasing prosperity through access to universally high-quality healthcare at lower costs.
“We also believe that technologies like Proximie can play a key role in tackling the problem of vast disparities in access to high quality care between high and low income countries,” Dr. Nadine said.
The Lancet Commission on Global Surgery reported that 5 billion people don’t have access to safe surgery and has stated that 1.27 million additional surgical providers need to be trained by 2030 to cope with this burden. By broadening the reach of trained surgeons and augmenting their skills the sustainability and affordability of local surgical expertise will be transformed.
