Artificial intelligence is changing how orthopedic surgeons can perform procedures, enhance surgical planning and boost documentation efficiency.
While the technology is still in the early stages of its life cycle, it is already making a significant impact on the field.
These three surgeons recently connected with Becker’s to share how they are using AI in their practices today.
Note: Responses were lightly edited for clarity and length.
Jonathan Vigdorchik, MD. Orthopedic Surgeon at HSS (New York City): AI technology for automated surgical planning, and similarly, AI for ambient listening in the office to help with office notes. I used to spend 30 minutes to an hour planning surgical cases, and this can now be done reliably and reproducibly in seconds. Also, in the office, ambient listening can generate office notes in seconds with equal or better quality without me having to ever type in the screen or turn my attention away from the patient. These technologies will continue to evolve and continue to help improve the patient experience and quality of care, in addition to helping physician administrative burden.
James Germano, MD. Chair of Orthopedics at Northwell’s Long Island Jewish Valley Stream (N.Y.) Hospital: There are a lot of programs that have already been in place, whether they’re preoperative planning, intraoperative decision making or post operative care of patients that we’re just starting to use AI to kind of help us in those areas. The big thing with AI is that it allows a lot less time to do stuff that was very time consuming by multiple people. With the constraints that we have on cost and all the other things that are going through the medical field right now, I think it’s a way to do stuff with a lot less cost and a lot more reliability. So, I think that AI is making an impact everywhere, but it’s still really in its infancy in how we’re using it.
James Chen, MD. Orthopedic Surgeon at DISC Sports & Spine Center (Newport Beach, Calif.): I am optimistic about the integration of AI tools in regards to surgical planning and documentation. I see this as a big opportunity to improve workflow efficiencies to combat increasing documentation requirements and overhead costs. It is important that these tools are rolled out safely and, if done appropriately, these tools can help reduce errors and improve communication between the providers, patients, surgical centers and payers.
