Unlocking the Power of Surgical Video Through “Touch Surgery” and DS1

CREATING AN INTELLIGENT OR AND A DIGITAL ECOSYSTEM Efficient management of time has never been more of concern as far as the video recordings of surgeries performed and their editing are concerned. Surgeons operate, record, edit, store, and archive them for many purposes, including presentation in CMEs and conferences. Conventional surgical data and video recordkeeping were extremely cumbersome with the old data recording system. Furthermore, they could only be stored for a limited duration on CDs, DVDs, and USB drives on storage stacks which were subsequently discarded after a certain period. They also lead to missing or damaged data and are prone to physical damage as well as vulnerability to multiple viruses that corrupt data. They were difficult to catalog and store and was cumbersome to extract the data when needed. With those outdated systems, there was also a lack of transparency on ownership of the data and videos; whether the surgeon, the unit, the department, or the hospital owns them. There are also concerns about patient’s privacy and data being in the public domain with fear of subsequent litigations if divulged accidentally. Touch surgery, as a part of the HUGO RAS system, comes as a very efficient solution. Simulation in surgery – Both cognitive skills for the technical skills are important for surgical residents undergoing laparoscopic training. Simulators can either be video-based simulation or complete computer graphics interface, the latter ones being pretty expensive. It is obvious that their integration into existing laparoscopic or robotic platforms would make them extremely efficient. Quantitative assessment of surgical skills – Quantification of laparoscopic or robotic surgical skills through different scoring systems encourages improvement in surgical skills for surgeons. These artificial intelligence (AI)-driven assessments based on kinetics and tissue handling help to determine a surgeon’s proficiency level. These algorithms with a full AI-based assessment provide feedback to surgeons with the aim of finally deliver standardized and safer patient-centric services. TOUCH SURGERY AND DS1 With the increased application and adaptation of cloud-based AI-driven platforms in surgery, several platforms have become available to create virtual portfolios or a video library for surgeons. These platforms provide surgeons with up-to-date video analytics of their performance and enable continuous monitoring. This feature could be used for training purposes and this is where touch surgery and DS1 [Figure 1] that are an intrinsic part of HUGO-RAS [Figure 2] become so invaluable. It allows videos to be seamlessly uploaded to a surgeon’s private library without the need for USB drives or encrypted hard drives. Touch surgery is, therefore, an encyclopedia, catalog, or the “Netflix” of surgery. This video management and analytics platform DS1 system seamlessly records and uploads the videos into the cloud as the surgeon operates [Figure 3]. It also facilitates collaboration and exchange of data among surgeons across the globe. A DS1 subscription can have unlimited surgeon accounts and cloud storage capacity is unlimited for a lifetime. They can be accessed through compatible web browsers or a mobile device, tablet, or laptop from anywhere. The lead surgeon also has full ownership of the video and can access or edit it. He can then share their private library with select individuals or inside the hospital network.Figure 1: Touch surgery and DS1Figure 2: The HUGO RAS Robotic systemFigure 3: Operating on the robot and using the DS1Touch surgery also allows these videos to be automatically broken down into segments and annotated. This scene segmentation or annotation allows the reconstruction of the sections back from the cloud and patterns created. It also allows the easy addition of contextual information or feedback. We can thus jump to a key procedural step using the added annotations. We can also filter using custom tags to easily search our library. This ability allows the introduction of a huge amount of data by AI for analysis. Here comes the importance of video analytics. Sportspersons and coaches in almost every sport now are seen to pour over their laptops to reflect on the performance of the athletes. The coaches analyze every step, look into the statistics, and look at the trend of the performance of the sportsperson. Real-time analysis of the statistics is available that allows prediction in the game that can actually influence the outcome of the match. Cloud-based AI-driven video analytics enables users to store, analyze, and review videos in a limitless cloud environment. It also allows adequate data protection and privacy that are considered major issues concerning the new technology. Cloud data security ensures that in spite of high-speed collection and recall of massive data, those cloud databases are not vulnerable to data theft or cyber-attacks. Patient privacy that is such a major concern is also ensured by touch surgery because it allows instrument detection and tracking. During robotic surgery, once the scope is inside the abdomen it starts recording, and the moment the scope is out of the patient’s abdomen everything is pixelated or blurred using the Redact-OR technology. These priceless training systems are the new tools that hospital administrations across the globe want because the improvement of patient care is the ultimate goal. They also want to use their resources in a very judicious manner. Touch surgery and DS1 are going to prove invaluable in times to come. Financial support and sponsorship Nil. Conflicts of interest There are no conflicts of interest.