The Future of Surgical Robotics

In operating rooms around the world, physicians are facing moments where precision and timing are critical, from clamping vital arteries to removing traces of metastatic tissue. Millimeters and seconds matter, and they matter to those who are entrusted with making sure highly effective tools are available to surgeons, care teams, and patients. At these points of possibility, inspiration meets invention and precision meets performance.

Excellence for patients takes more than the robot

For more than a quarter century, Intuitive has collaborated with the world’s leading physicians and health systems to bring robotics to the operating room through learning and innovation. That foundation has yielded a suite of trusted solutions—including the da Vinci and the Ion robotic systems. Data from more than 10 million ¹ procedures performed with da Vinci systems, spanning more than two decades, has helped surgeons to make informed decisions. This is just the beginning of a health care future that is more digitally enabled than ever before.

Intuitive believes that the transparent, responsible, and secure use of data can bring increasing value to the operating room. A particular area of interest that holds enormous promise is the use of big data and AI in surgery. It could help medical students and residents learn more quickly and efficiently; improve the ability to identify which patients are the best candidates for surgery, and which surgical approaches offer the best chance for success; and by providing real-time input, it could even help guide surgeons’ choices in the OR.

Intuitive is currently collaborating with more than 200 renowned surgeons ¹ globally on proficiencies using real-world data. With insights from care teams, Intuitive is building tools like real-time guidance to help surgeons perform tasks during a procedure with additional information to help them improve decision-making. ² This work is advancing Intuitive’s integrated software solutions and developing even more enhanced training modalities and tools, which will leverage powerful technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence. Yet the end goal remains simple—help care teams consistently deliver better, more predictable outcomes.

Building reproducible robotics programs

Since its beginnings, Intuitive has seen itself not as a company that manufactures devices, but as a collaborator, an active participant in an ongoing relationship. Having installed more than 6,700 of the world’s most sophisticated robotic-assisted surgical platforms, Intuitive has built its understanding of workflows, challenges, and opportunities by looking at the path of the intervention starting before the case, working through a procedure and during follow up after the case. Intuitive takes a methodical, data-driven approach that helps care centers make progress towards their strategic, operational, and clinical priorities.

Intuitive also takes very seriously its commitment to ensure that its devices are operating as smoothly, precisely and safely as possible. This dedication has allowed Intuitive to maintain 99 percent ¹ uptime for its da Vinci systems, a testament to the reliability of the solutions it provides.

Innovating and investing for better outcomes

While supporting hospitals and clinicians in their current programs, Intuitive remains resolutely future-focused. In 2020, Intuitive spent more than $595 million ¹ on research and development in an effort to continue improving the experiences for patients and providers. And with more than 6,300 ¹ active and pending patents, Intuitive is leveraging its vast body of data and innovative software to address some of the biggest challenges facing healthcare systems today and tomorrow.

To further accelerate progress, Intuitive launched Intuitive Ventures, an internal funding effort to foster and incubate the development of novel technologies that have the potential to significantly advance robotic-assisted surgery and minimally invasive care. Among the companies Intuitive is working with: KelaHealth, which is exploring AI as a way to predict a patient’s risk of developing surgical complications; and Flywheel, which is developing innovative strategies to help researchers curate and control massive amounts of data.

Focused on what is possible today, tomorrow, and in the future

Building on its firm foundation of learning and innovation, Intuitive focuses on delivering what is possible now and in the future to healthcare systems around the globe. Intuitive envisions a future where medical care is even more effective and less invasive than what is already possible today.