Joe Mullings l Standouts from SDTS Houston

“Modern man doesn’t see God because he refuses to look low enough” – Carl Jung

The proposed uses of AI in healthcare and in particular the medical device sector has some ring of truth to Carl Jung statement.

This struck me as I participated in the Surgical Disruptive Technology Summit event in Houston this past week.

It was an excellent event hosted by Erik Wilson and Dr. Christopher Schlachta of the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons (SAGES) brought fantastic discussions to the floor. We are in one of the most dynamic times in medtech with the early days of AI, changing centers of care, the surge in digital surgery solutions, and FDA that is balanced in its protection of the patient population and accommodating to industry.

A few standout thoughts that I am still chewing through:

• A nod to the Carl Jung statement….The use of AI in a clinicians, or surgeons hands is powerful for sure. However, the use of AI in providing massive solution sets in greatly reducing the administrative and workforce issues will have a much bigger impact.
• AI and/or AI Agents onboard large format surgical and interventional robotic systems will be table stakes. If you are entering an RFP battle, and do not have at least a “dashboard” that informs administration of basic metrics, you are likely going to be at a meaningful competitive disadvantage.
• Some of the large strategics are at least exhibiting some humility as evidence continues to mount as they get bypassed in the surgical robotic category by smaller organizations with far less resources.
• The subject and dialogue around the criticality of the shifting centers of care to ASC’s was still for the most part absent from this weeks conversations and it was a big miss.
• Far too many discussions are occurring around subjects about trying to increase efficiencies in things that we should not be doing in the first place.

Thank you again Erik Wilson and team for sponsoring one of the more critical and dynamic events in medtech.