Via: Touch Surgery
WIRED
hosted its first Health conference on the 29th of April at the Royal College of
General Practitioners in London. Attending the event were over 300 scientists,
entrepreneurs and medical pioneers at the core of the health-tech interface.
Touch Surgery, the Serious Game that is changing the way that surgeons learn to
operate was featured on the startup stage amongst some other apps.
As reported
by The Almost Doctor’s Channel
via Practice Surgery On the Go, “Touch
Surgery may be the new best app for med students - especially those who
want to pursue a surgical field. Even if you aren’t gunning to become a
surgeon, the app is actually fun and it’s free”.
Developed
by Kinosis for iOS and Android,
the 3D Serious Game walks players through several common surgical procedures, using a
process called Cognitive Task Simulation to break each operation down into
fundamental steps and decision-points.
Cognitive
Task Simulation is a new development in surgical education and stems from the
fact that a well performed operation relies upon a combination of effective
surgical decision making and technical skill.
According
to Jean Nehme, CEO and co-founder, Touch Surgery was created on the principle
that surgical performance is 75 percent reliant on cognitive skills – such as
visual and pattern recognition – that will enable surgeons to make the right
decisions; the other 25 percent involves the technical ability to perform the
surgery.
“Although
technical skill is undoubtedly of high importance, it is widely felt that
intraoperative knowledge and decision making is the most important factor in a
successful operation”, he says. “However, decision making skills are only
taught indirectly in the majority of surgical training programs, where training
surgeons have to absorb this critical skill by a process of observation and
repetition.”
Recent
research has shown that breaking down an operation into a series of individual
steps and decision points can greatly enhance operative understanding and
retention of knowledge. This process is called Cognitive Task Assessment (CTA).
Touch Surgery identifies the key steps and decisions within an operation using the
CTA method and presents the information within an interactive visual format
that allows players to perform each step of the operation, training surgeons
even before they step into the operating room. It is the world’s first Cognitive
Task Simulator for surgery.
Bringing CTA based learning to surgeons anytime, anywhere
Total knee arthroplasty on Touch Surgery
Trochanteric wiring on Touch Surgery
Operations
are presented with two options - Learn or Test.
Learn
provides step by step information on how the procedure is done in a simplified
manner. The simulation part requires the user to interact with the app by
dragging a finger across the screen to complete specific instructions. As the
user advances through the steps 3D animations represent the actions that they
are performing.
Whenever players
feel they mastered the simulation they can test themselves through a simulation
with no instructions at all. Depending on how well they did they’ll get a score
which will be uploaded to a leaderboard.
There are almost
30 different procedures available at the Touch Surgery Operations Library,
among them the Breast Reconstruction Surgery, Open Appendectomy, Emergency Leg
Fasciotomy, Knee Arthroscopy, Carpel Tunnel Release, Tendon Repair, Cemented
Hip Cup, and many more.
The Touch
Surgery team is working with leading surgeons and institutions worldwide to
create valuable surgical content and ensure accuracy. Their value proposition
is to make the best of surgical training available to everyone, everywhere.
About Kinosis
Based in London, Kinosis was formed by 4 like-minded surgeons who share
a passion for teaching and education. They are the creators of Touch Surgery
with over 100,000 downloads and a worldwide audience.