Improve performance in the OR with Incision Assist

Incision, a platform for improving surgical performance and online training, is thrilled to announce the launch of Incision Assist — a Companion App designed to improve team performance in the operating room (OR). The product was launched at Intelligent Health, the world’s leading AI in medicine summit, and aims to solve one of the biggest challenges in the OR today: having all critical information that you need to perform directly at your fingertips, precisely when you need it. The Incision Assist Companion App is now available to download.

Incision Assist, product marketing film

In a typical hospital, much of the information needed to perform daily tasks can be found in unit- or area-specific protocols. However, protocols quickly become outdated and are not easily accessed by everyone, as they are usually stored somewhere on a H: drive and are only accessible from certain locations.

Most current protocols are presented each with their own format and can only be accessed from certain locations 

The large volume of information OR teams require to function (preferences of individual surgeons, procedure-specific draping methods, what materials are required, etc.) impacts the combined “cognitive load” placed on the team: a term used to describe the amount of information the working memory can hold at any one time and the impact this has on performance.

Remembering all this information is especially hard in the dynamic and often stressful environment of the OR, leading to problems like delays, frustration, errors and increased risk of complications. Provider error has been shown to contribute to a significant proportion of preventable complications in hospitalized surgical patients.

Are hospitals reaching target performance levels in the OR?

Structured performance management is frequently lacking or non-existent in the OR. Incision Assist aims to solve this problem and remove some of the roadblocks to accurate and reliable performance measurement and quality improvement.

Four major Dutch hospitals will act as innovation partners and will be among the first to work with Incision Assist: Medisch Spectrum Twente (MST), Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC), Amsterdam University Medical Center, and IJsselland Ziekenhuis (YSL). The Companion App allows team members to give feedback on protocols, helping the respective teams to make small improvements each working day.

“At MST, we aim to remove redundancy from our processes and start each day better organized — with the OR team completely aligned. Our goal is efficient information management. We hope this is going to help us reduce the administrative burden so we can focus even more on what’s most important: our patients.”

Laurens van Houte, OR Manager, MST

“Incision Assist offers the opportunity to actively participate in the training of surgeons, scrub nurses, nurse anesthetists, etc. A well-prepared operating room represents a job already half done. I look forward to working on this project both directly at the Amsterdam UMC and within the framework of the European Minimally Invasive Pancreatic Surgery (E-MIPS), a registry specifically designed to monitor safety outcomes and aid with future research projects.”

Marc Besselink, Professor of Pancreatic and Hepatobiliary (HPB) surgery, Amsterdam UMC

Optimize team performance in the OR

Incision Assist lets you easily document and manage all protocols with the Assist Content Management System. The content is then automatically populated into the Assist Companion App. As a result, the entire team can easily find what they’re looking for in order to align and prepare for a day in the OR. 

“The strength of Incision Assist is that it makes complex information accessible to the OR team. It does this in a highly specific and intuitive way, showing what is relevant for a specific procedure combined with a specific surgeon. This is a really big upgrade in how protocol data is hosted, indexed, and distributed.”

Raimo van der Klein, CTO, Incision

‘With Incision Assist, we expect a significant reduction in wasted materials and time. By combining protocol data with the individual specifications for each patient, we aim to reduce the time that teams need to prepare patients for the OR. Team preparation is coordinated through visualization of this data, allowing an easy rollout and intuitive workflow. This should benefit the work atmosphere and offer a safe learning and working environment.”

Johan Thelen, OR Manager, YSL

Medical device companies Mölnlycke and Stryker will collaborate with Incision to deliver content for the surgical equipment and materials section of the app. Data analytics partner NewCompliance will create the infrastructure so that the information can be displayed on several screens in the OR.

“We can all agree on this: hospitals want to achieve the best clinical outcomes delivered in the most efficient way. Unfortunately, this situation is not the reality today; there are big variations in surgical outcomes and structured performance management is largely lacking in the OR. Incision is proud to be working together with hospitals, medical device companies, and data analytics partners, to best solve this problem. Our goal is to have informed, aligned, and confident OR teams, running on processes that are less siloed, less laborious, and less error-prone so that we can improve efficiency and performance in the OR, together.” 

Ritsaart van Montfrans, CEO, Incision

A new chapter for Incision

With its recent expansion into the UK, Sweden, Belgium, and the Middle East, Incision is growing fast. Incision is well known for innovative and internationally accredited e-learning and, with the launch of Incision Assist, the company is starting an exciting new chapter.

Incision’s team testing Incision Assist at MST hospital earlier this year

About Incision

Incision is a fast-growing platform for improving surgical performance and online training, founded in Amsterdam by Prof. Theo Wiggers and a number of other entrepreneurial professionals — with the mission to improve surgical care. Its team believes strongly in sharing surgical skills and making high-quality surgical knowledge accessible to everyone. On May 27 this year, Incision received €5M funding from SHS and Rubio Impact Ventures.

Further information: www.incision.care 

Press contact: taylor@incision.care