The global healthcare industry has shifted with the advent of cloud-based platforms and cutting-edge technologies that boost productivity and profitability. Unlike traditional healthcare models, digitization has crept into every area of the healthcare data management systems and surgical navigation, improving care quality and efficiency. However, today’s surgical teams often spend a significant amount of time retrieving patient data, switching between analog and digital processes and documenting surgery in the operating room. With an aim to make medical technology and knowledge more accessible to physicians and their patients, Brainlab addresses this challenge. The company digitalizes surgical workflows and patient treatment planning and makes surgical navigation smooth and effective. This international technology innovator also enables more effective use of medical data and physician collaboration.
Digitalization of surgical workflows is a huge topic in the industry because the operating room is one of the most cost-heavy and often inefficient areas in the hospital. Brainlab works toward mitigating these challenges by focusing on enabling easier access to patient data, from planning in the surgeon’s office, verifying the patient in the O.R., to quick documentation during and after the surgery.
Brainlab was founded in 1989 by teenaged Stefan Vilsmeier after he first encountered digital neurosurgical data during a project at the University of Vienna. The project was focussed on the pre-processing of anatomical 3D data, which triggered further ideas about the use of CT and MR images. Over the years, the company grew and expanded into other areas, including spinal, trauma, ENT and orthopaedic surgery, and most notably radiotherapy as well as digital operating room integration.
The company aims to help physicians spend less time on screens and software so they can spend more time with their patients. All Brainlab software and hardware products, whether for surgery, radiotherapy or operating room integration, are designed with healthcare providers and patients in mind, hence they are easy to use. Brainlab strives to ensure users feel confident and at ease utilizing their products, which is why all of their software contains so much automation that is aimed at simplifying interaction. This intelligent automation happens in the background but provides a huge amount of support when planning procedures and treatments.
The guiding principle of Brainlab has always been to create disruptive technologies that make a huge impact not only in the lives of patients, but also in the daily work of physicians. Brainlab recently announced its exclusive partnership with Magic Leap to bring spatial computing into surgery. The company offers software that provides the basis for mixed reality applications in and around the O.R. Known as the Brainlab Development Framework, it will allow third parties to develop spatial computing applications with Magic Leap for surgery as well.
