VR surgery training

Lead Participant: 3D METAL PRINTING LTD

Abstract

3D Metal Printing Ltd. is a MedTech engineering company based at the University of Bath Innovation Centre.
Our mission is to restore outstanding patient quality of life using custom-made treatments. We develop solutions for public health improvements by continually innovating and improving our product range to deliver superior patient outcomes. We additively manufacture a range of custom-made medical devices and digital applications for 3D surgical planning.

Our proposed TOKA VR Surgery Training will enable surgeons and clinical staff to remotely train to treat patients suffering from knee osteoarthritis. The introduction of virtual training would allow faster TOKA HTO package adoption by the NHS, rapidly upskilling surgeons and supporting the pandemic transition to increased remote engagement with patients.

The VR surgery model would also benefit medical schools where students could access high quality training remotely to continue their studies, supporting academic institutions to deliver new remote teaching methods.
Longer term, the approach could be applied to other orthopaedic surgical procedures.

The scope of the project is to deliver:

Specialist surgical training - VR training of more surgeons in specialised early intervention procedures like HTO – High Tibial Osteotomy - thus reducing demand for joint replacement.

Immersive remote learning - VR with haptic feedback providing the sensation of the drilling, sawing etc. gives the surgeon a realistic immersive experience.

Personalised medicine - Using pre-operative imaging (CT-scan and x-rays) to plan and simulate surgery de-risks many aspects of the procedure and allows for the manufacture of 3D-printed personalised implants and surgical guides utilising the existing NHS resources.

The introduction of virtual training and planning would allow faster NHS adoption of the TOKA HTO procedure through rapid upskilling of surgeons and supporting a transition to greater remote engagement with elective patients. The TOKA VR technology will provide benefits to healthcare providers in terms of social distancing and reduced risk of infection through:

- Reducing the number of physical interactions between patients and surgeons through remote consultations;
- A virtual learning environment reducing travel time to and physical laboratory time in practising procedures
- Reducing surgery times
- Reducing staff numbers in theatres due to the simplified TOKA procedure
- Integration with the overall TOKA surgical platform could save the NHS up to £40M. annually based on treating 3,000 HTO and 11,000 UKR cases in the UK annually (Health Enterprise East, 2019).

Lead Participant

Project Cost

Grant Offer

3D METAL PRINTING LTD £73,318 £ 73,318

Publications

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