Every orthopedic surgeon has a unique way of providing care, shaped by their clinical knowledge and expertise.
With the integration of AI into orthopedics, surgeons can benefit from AI’s data analysis capabilities to examine millions of data points and create a treatment plan that provides the best care and patient outcome.
James Germano, MD, chair of orthopedics at New Hyde Park, N.Y.-based Northwell Health’s Long Island Jewish Valley Stream (N.Y.) Hospital, recently completed the first AI-assisted total hip replacement surgery in the U.S. using the Ortoma platform.
He recently connected with Becker’s to share his view of the future of AI in orthopedics.
Editor’s note: Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Question: What kind of capabilities do you think AI could have in the future for orthopedics?
Dr. James Germano: Orthopedics being a surgical field, there’s a lot of diversity in how people think and what they do. And one of the things I think, in any surgical field is understanding how well people do after their surgery, because there’s small different things that each surgeon does. So when we look at surgeon A’s outcomes versus surgeon B’s outcomes, what’s the reason? Are they a better surgeon? Do they have better equipment? Are they doing something specific on that patient? Is it a thought process? It’s very, very difficult to assess those things. I think with AI, we can start getting information, but also putting in information and allowing the AI to analyze these huge data sets. You can’t do that normally, but the AI can go through these huge data sets of information, these millions and millions of patients that we take care of, and really come up with what gives our patients the best outcomes.
We’ll be able to use AI in the future to say, “Okay, here’s the patient, these characteristics and these problems. So what would you suggest is the best overall surgical plan for this particular patient?” For example, I’ve done thousands of knee replacements. I think of myself as my own AI, I’m going through all my experience, all my history, everything that I’ve done, every surgery that I’ve done, every mistake that I made, but now we can get that same knowledge base and give it to someone who’s maybe done 500 hip or knee replacements, who’s in the early parts of their career, who don’t have the experience, and they can make good choices for their patients. That’s just one of the many ways that AI is going to be able to help improve patient care in orthopedics.
