The wave of spine innovation keeps growing, leading to new opportunities for surgeons, Tan Chen, MD, said.
Dr. Chen, who plans to join Inova Health System in Fairfax, Va., spoke about the most exciting aspect the move has to offer.
Note: This conversation was lightly edited for clarity.
Question: What healthcare trends are you following lately?
Dr. Tan Chen: One would be the changing political landscape. I think there’s still a lot that’s really hard to predict about how things are going to kind of shake out, especially with government based funding. I know there’s been some movement with regards to reimbursements for ASCs recently, especially on the anesthesia side of things. I don’t know exactly how that will play out for private practice groups that just have ASCs, but I think it’ll be interesting.
I’m also following all the technology. It’s just going to continue to grow, whether it’s robotics or implanting technology or navigation or image acquisition. There’s a lot of new technology that’s upcoming, and part of the move to joining Inova is really that they’re very receptive to new technology and trying new things in spine care.
Q: Are there any new technologies that you’re hoping to bring to Inova? What are the most exciting opportunities there?
TC: They have a lot from a robotic standpoint. A lot of my practice involves minimally invasive surgery, and having the access to those robots certainly allows me to try new methods of putting in implants, perhaps more precisely and faster. The other aspect is motion preservation. I think joining Inova opens up the portfolio to a lot of the motion preservation technology that I’m interested in. Things like lumbar disc arthroplasty, lumbar facet arthroplasty and other motion preservation technology. I think nowadays every time patients hear about fusions they always get a little bit weary. And understandably. Fusion is the gold standard for spine arthritis, but it has a lot of pros and cons. Motion preservation is really the next step in technology by being able to keep the motions between the segments. But a lot of it is still experimental, but I’m pretty excited to be part of a system that is receptive to this kind of stuff.
