Spine surgeon Robert Masson, MD, CEO of eXeX, is leading a new era of artificial intelligence-based operating room technologies.
In May, eXeX’s surgical mapping software, used with Apple Vision Pro, launched commercially at Sarasota (Fla.) Memorial Hospital with Robert Knego, MD, leading the debut.
The headset is just one tool that operating teams leverage along with iPads and other computing devices, Dr. Masson said. And the surgical map software creates digital twins of every surgery to support the team.
“It occurred to me that we’re still working in antiquity with preference cards and memorization relative to surgical execution,” Dr. Masson said. “The concept of surgery maps, not only spatially and equipment wise, but also temporally meaning time when, when do you need what and why and and do you need everything? With AI it addresses streamlining. How do you do time stamping of tools and of equipment use? Even if the team member has never worked with you before you still have a mechanism where you know exactly what’s going on, exactly what the surgeon wants and needs and the specific procedural needs.”
Before eXeX, Dr. Masson said that improving his own surgical team efficiency involved making time to connect and get leverage with the hospital for what he needed.
“But most surgeons don’t have the bandwidth to generate that kind of demand, and they can’t tell hospitals what they need and why they need it, and they get whoever’s available,” he said.
With eXeX’s tools, surgeons can keep up efficiencies, and operating teams can master workflows quicker.
“Anytime you lose an asset, anytime you lose a circulating nurse or a scrub technician or a key person on your team, you’re starting from scratch,” Dr. Masson said. “With old mechanisms it took forever to retrain people. So we’re creating an environment where we can upskill people in a couple of days, rather than a couple of months.”
And the numbers speak for themselves.
“Surgical setup is three times more accurate,” Dr. Masson said. “Staff onboarding is six times more rapid. Surgical step efficiency is 4.65 times more efficient. It’s pretty substantial.”
Although eXeX’s surgical mapping tools have been piloted with orthopedics and launched with spine, Dr. Masson said he wants to expand its use to other specialties with cardiology as the next target.
As AI grows in healthcare, Dr. Masson said he’s thinking about the broader role it will play long-term.
“I feel like I’m at a really unique singularity point in human technological history,” he said. “Two years ago, AI was a concept. All of a sudden we have multiple AI commercial platforms, and people are talking about this as though it’s mature. It’s the worst version of it it’s ever going to be. Needless to say, I don’t think most of us have really gotten to master status relative to its use … So I’m still in the deep philosophical transcendence of surgery: Is it humanistic AI or is it like Big Brother? AI that’s intended to enhance human performance by automating the mundane and more administrative, bureaucratic stuff — that’s the zone we fall into.”
