ARTICLE SUMMARY:
A conversation with Sharrolyn Josse, worldwide president of VELYS Digital Surgery & Capital at DePuy Synthes. Contributed by Johnson & Johnson’s DePuy Synthes division with an introduction by Mary Stuart.
Companies serving surgical specialties are generally dealing with hardware-dominated aspects of medicine—tools, screws, implants, and fasteners—so it has taken time for them to formulate the right digital health strategies. But many are on board now, with a new mission called digital surgery, whereby data has the potential to inform and improve every step of the surgical care pathway.
The definition of digital surgery is still fluid, with companies counting themselves members of the club if they offer surgical robots, AI-enhanced visualization, or other data analytics that can contribute to improved clinical and economic outcomes at one or several points along the surgical care continuum. But DePuy Synthes, the orthopedic company of Johnson & Johnson, is embracing the concept broadly; its VELYS Digital Surgery platform was created to address what happens before, during, and after surgery in orthopedics, the most hardware-heavy of all clinical specialties.